»Is homosexuality immoral?«
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 Knn, this is getting boring. My main arguments clearly outlined in the post entitled: "Ok maybe I didn't make my ideas clear enough..." If you could stop arguing whether the 'religious rain making rituals' in a book comparing religious rituals are really 'religious' maybe we could get back to the point? Whether eating meat is right was obviously not the point either. The point is that if someone thought homosexuality was right they wouldn't necessarily write: "homosexuality is right" which is seen by the fact that neither Leonardo Da Vinci nor Ancient Greek Philosophers wrote that very statement. posted by fatpie42 |
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| in-my-opinion.orgReligion and Mysteries, from worship to werewolvesReligious & Philosophical TopicsIs homosexuality immoral? |
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 fatpie42: (1) is no help to Stinkz because in order to claim that it was reasonable he would have to claim that all religions were based on a common truth ie. become a pluralist. So far, off to a bad start. I do not have to be a pluralist to believe that many religions have glimpses of truth. I merely think that the others miss the whole picture. I could hardly believe in a rational Christianity if it did not show some commonality with the rest of humanity's religions. fatpie42: Unless Stinkz drops this point he must realise that he is being hypocritical. No, fatpie. You need to get an understanding of what ralph has said, before you continue arguing. fatpie42: Normally we see opinions as evolving, adapting and changing. Not as fixed and unchanging. Here is the Nietzschean view. Nietzsche does not tell us what our morality must be, because morality NEEDS to change in order not to be stagnant. On the issue of morality, the difference between us is, I believe that morality is rational, and you do not. Something that is rational is based on axioms. Let's look at mathematics, for instance. Our understanding, when it comes to mathematics, may change, and even change drastically as we gain new understanding. However, it is based on unchanging, fixed axioms. Does this fact hinder mathematical advancement? Is mathematics, therefore, "stagnant?" By no means. I look to ancient texts for the axioms of traditional morality. Without axioms, "moral advance" is impossible. Without them, morality might change, and I'm sure it would; but how could any change possibly be determined to be for the better? With your type of moral belief, one must, like knn, share the blind developmentalist belief that all change is necessarily for the better. In fact, if something has changed, it's new and present state must automatically be deemed the better of the two. However, by taking this position, what is "good" is reduced to the level of merely meaning what is "at the present state." fatpie42: Can you see a rational reason why the command should relate to modern day, Stinkz? The axioms of both mathematics and traditional morality need not produce any rational reasons to believe them. Their validity is assumed, and must be. "Wherever any precept of traditional morality is simply challenged to produce its credentials, as though the burden of proof lay on it, we have taken the wrong position." -C. S. Lewis posted by stinkz |
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 stinkz: I look to ancient texts for the axioms of traditional morality. Without axioms, "moral advance" is impossible. Without them, morality might change, and I'm sure it would; but how could any change possibly be determined to be for the better? With your type of moral belief, one must, like knn, share the blind developmentalist belief that all change is necessarily for the better. In fact, if something has changed, it's new and present state must automatically be deemed the better of the two. However, by taking this position, what is "good" is reduced to the level of merely meaning what is "at the present state." Who is saying that change is always better? Atomic energy was a big change but as a result atomic weapons and the cold war could have/can still destroy the human race in 1 stroke. I don't blindly believe change will make things better over night. Change generally takes alot of time and effort. Often it can knock you several steps back before you can move forward again. And why do you have to blindly believe in change? You have to work at change if you want it to happen. posted by volonteshiva |
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You can't name the axioms of morality because there ARE none. That isn't to say that C.S. Lewis is necessarily wrong though. But to say that morality doesn't work with axioms. In the principia mathematica the axioms on which mathematics is based were recorded. This still didn't help mathematics though since Godel's incompleteness theorem shows that our mathematical system could be false and we would have no way of knowing. The way we know mathematics works is its practical usage. That is also how we know that morality works. It's the same with language. The correctness or incorrectness of language is shown in our everyday usage and not in the system itself (see Wittgenstein). You have a mistaken idea of the way these systems work Stinkz. It is natural for you to say "this doesn't make any rational sense". I said the same thing when I was shown Wittgenstein. But that is what makes him the genius and us the idiots. Sometimes we need to be shown how to think outside the box in order to get the answers. posted by fatpie42 |
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 nice debate fellas, interesting read indeed, I'd like to throw something out there and see what your ideas might be. Stinkz in your view, what about a person born with both sex organs (= a hermaphrodite?) Which gender should they chose to not be immoral? The one which will produce an offspring? What if they both can produce an offspring? (this may be hypothetical, only because I haven't heard of both sexual organs working, but only of one or the other able to function) Maybe first it should be asked, are two functioning sexual organs possible? posted by The ONEder Man |
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 i couldnt find the post to quote, but i remember reading that someone thinks homosexuals are the way they are because they chose to be. if this is true, then ask yourself this: were you born heterosexual, or did you choose to be heterosexual? have you always been attracted to the opposite sex, or did you choose to be attracted to the opposite sex? why can it not be different for a homosexual? if you have always been attracted to the oppostie sex, why is it so unthinkable that someone else has always been attracted to the same sex? i cant speak for everyone, but i have never been attracted to the same sex and have always been attracted to females. i didn't choose to be that way, i wasnt told to be that way, i didn't decide to be that way because it was the "cool" or "right" way to be, i have just always been that way. no choice involved. posted by allone |
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fatpie42: You can't name the axioms of morality because there ARE none. Wrong. The axioms of morality are found in the ancient moral writings. We are forced to trust in the axioms "Thou shalt not steal" and "Thou shalt not murder" without question. fatpie42: The way we know mathematics works is its practical usage. That is also how we know that morality works. That is such a vague, impossible position. How do you judge if morality "works" by practical usage? Is it simply working, for you? Are you alive still, because of this morality? If you have convinced yourself that the axioms of morality are fallible, fine. But you have nowhere to stand for which to judge if morality is working practically. You can merely judge whether or not it happens to be pleasing you. There is no ground for moral judgements outside the axioms of traditional morality. If you wish to step outside them, and outside humanity, in order to form your own morality, based merely on the fact that human morality is probably imperfect (aka we are fallen), then fine. But, realize that you ARE stepping outside of humanity, and that if we are to have any regards (natural or supernatural) for the morality of humanity, we shouldn't follow in your footsteps. All your talk about Godel and Wittgenstein hasn't given one valid reason for your rejection of traditional morals. Once again, you don't reject mathematics based on Godel's theorem, why must you regect morality because of it? posted by stinkz |
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stinkz: The axioms of morality are found in the ancient moral writings. We are forced to trust in the axioms "Thou shalt not steal" and "Thou shalt not murder" without question. Those aren't axioms because they are not absolute. You could not say that stealing was wrong without question. If you are going to say the murder is wrong without question you can stop supporting the Iraq War. I would reckon that stealing when it is necessary to feed your family would not be wrong. You would have to dismiss Robin Hood's "robbing the rich to feed the poor" ideal out of hand on your morality. Let's say the only way to save your friend in the freezing cold is to break into a house and use the objects in there to keep them warm. This would involve stealing whether it was considered acceptable by the owner of the house or not. Yet we would probably say that the life of that person was more important than the house-owners right to property. As I already said, war almost entirely involves murder. You might say that defence does not fall into the same category as murder but that still means that your axioms are more complicated than you are trying to suggest. If a long complicated definition of 'murder' is needed, how can you say that it is a basic axiom? (Not only that, but where in the Bible is this complicated definition of murder given?) posted by fatpie42 |
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 Excellent Fatpie, but you might also want to add that those alleged "axioms" are merely taken from the ten commandments in the Bible, and again our friend stinkz is making Christianity the ultimate truth. posted by Echelon |
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fatpie42: I would reckon that stealing when it is necessary to feed your family would not be wrong. You would have to dismiss Robin Hood's "robbing the rich to feed the poor" ideal out of hand on your morality. Though I would like to dismiss this principle behind socialism, that would not be the point. Here, you are trying to argue a position that theft is OK, based on another traditional moral precept, "that we ought to help the poor." However, the second moral does not "debunk" the first, as you have suggested, it merely sheds light on the subject. It is the reason we form government systems like capitalism, designed to help poor people help themselves, so that it is not necessary to steal from the rich in order to help the poor. But, even still, when you try to argue that a person is "greedy" or has too much money, you are again calling upon traditional moral axioms, which tell us that these things are wrong. You are not proving that there are no axioms, you are proving that there ARE, and that you accept them. It is when we reconcile these apparent conflicts that we gain new understanding. Those who aspire to live their lives morally, and come to an apparent impass, are the ones who are going to gain moral understanding of complex situations. fatpie42: As I already said, war almost entirely involves murder. You might say that defence does not fall into the same category as murder but that still means that your axioms are more complicated than you are trying to suggest. If a long complicated definition of 'murder' is needed, how can you say that it is a basic axiom? (Not only that, but where in the Bible is this complicated definition of murder given?) The fact that morality is based on axioms does not mean that morality won't get complicated. It means that it will! Look at how complicated mathematics gets. I should not be surprised that there must be a long definition of murder. Through an understanding of traditional moral precepts, such as "Justice" and "thou shalt not kill," coupled with an understanding of what traditional morality tells us about the importance of the heart (intentions), we arrive at our complicated, moral positions. posted by stinkz |
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You are saying that the basis of morality is in axioms and I am saying the basis of morality is everyday experience. You claim that everyday experience is not enough to produce morality, while I am claiming that axioms are not enough to produce morality. Maybe what is missing here is a midway view. A middle way. But it might be suggested that we both already have one though approached from different directions. You think there are axioms which are expanded by experience of everyday life. I think that everyday experience allows us to produce a moral system. I will now argue that the people who wrote the ancient texts did so because they derived a moral system from their experience of life. I don't think there would be any point of creating an axiom without looking at everyday life first. Even if you want to say that the axioms were produced by experience of God rather than of life, it still remains that God would have commanded us to follow those axioms based on his understanding of creation. (In order to say that morality is part of creation you would have to be a plationist and say that morality is a REAL thing rather than an abstract term. Such a view is blatantly absurd - like saying that 3 is a real thing even when there are no objects to count and no minds to do the counting. posted by fatpie42 |
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fatpie42: I think that everyday experience allows us to produce a moral system. Everyday experience is in no way going to produce morality, though I can see how you might make this mistake. In our society, everyday experience includes a government (established because of acknowledged moral laws) ensuring that everyone acts justly. In this kind of situation, one might conclude that everyday experiences could produce a morality, or at least a partial one. However, without an established method of moral control (assuming that parents do not instill in their children a reverence for traditional morals), everyday experiences are hardly going to produce any morality at all, and will instead produce savages. fatpie42: I am saying the basis of morality is everyday experience. If everyday experience is all that morality is based on, we no longer have any ground by which to judge the actions of even the cruelest dictator. Hitler, given that his everyday experience differs from mine, could have been, and WAS acting completely morally. fatpie42: Such a view is blatantly absurd Just because you believe that there are no absolutes, the opposite view does not automatically become absurd... unless, of course, you are prepared to make your belief an absolute. fatpie42: you would have to be a plationist and say that morality is a REAL thing rather than an abstract term Plato was on to something, with his ideas about forms. He was discovering the truth of absolutes. Yes, unlike you, I believe that morality is a REAL thing. It is something which IS, and could not possibly be any other way, because it is consistant with God's True and Perfect nature. posted by stinkz |
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So you think there would be "human morality" in the world, even if there were no humans? If you are saying that it is something independant from human action surely this is what you must presume? posted by fatpie42 |
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 If there are absolute morals then they would include something like
etc... I CAN imagine "Don't sex around" / "Don't cheat" there, but I cannot imagine any "Don't be gay" there as an universal absolute law. posted by knn |
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 Why not? Being gay can bring whole families down and fills people with hatred enough to want to killl there husbands who turn gay right? see what i am trying to point at? posted by Agent Zero |
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