Begging the question is a logical fallacy where you assume what you are supposed to be proving.
I see this fallacy a lot with the oxymoronic “same sex marriage” debate. I saw this comment at another site.
You can’t deny the right to marry to some and then cheat on your spouse. The right to happily marry belongs to all no matter how unhappy it makes you.
My response:
Actually, you shouldn’t cheat on your spouse, ever, regardless of what else you do.
And you also shouldn’t cheat and change the definition of marriage when the subject of the debate is the definition of marriage.
The definition of marriage is a union of a man and a woman. The debate is whether to change that to “a union of man and a woman or man/man or woman/woman” or “whatever we want it to be.”
But it is cheating to beg the question and say we should change to the new definition because everyone has a right to your new definition.
Do you all even realize how you commit that fallacy, or is it so habitual that you actually think you are making a point?
Opponents of real marriage beg the question by claiming that we are discriminating against gays by not having government recognize their unions as marriage. But they do not meet the definition of marriage. What is simultaneously sad and amusing is that they don’t seem to realize their inconsistency.
We aren’t denying anyone the right to marry. Our opponents want to change the definition of marriage but are taking a shortcut.
Filed under: Politics | Tagged: Bible, gay, Politics, prop 8, religion, same-sex marriage
I know this has been a big issues lately. I personally believe marriage is between a man and woman. I know the definition is important but what’s more important then that is leading by example. Neil,h I know you have been married a long time so you can really discuss this subject. I have been divorced twice. I married the same man both time, but anyway. I think helping people learn to stay married would be more effective in the fight against non-traditional marriage. Because you hear more people say the lack of two parent home influence to discover there sexuality ( becoming gay).
We(Christians) need to stop making a mockery of marriage all the way around. 33%of Christians have been divorced, so if we don’t take marriage seriously why should gays?
Hi Syinly,
I absolutely agree that Christians should take marriage more seriously.
I also think it is bad reasoning when pro-”same sex marriage” advocates try to advance their cause by saying that many heterosexuals get divorced. So what? That doesn’t mean that the definition of marriage has changed, or that gay couples can create a child themselves or provide a mother and a father to a child. (I realize you weren’t making those points; I just wanted work them in!).
Have a blessed weekend!
That doesn’t mean that the definition of marriage has changed, or that gay couples can create a child themselves or provide a mother and a father to a child. (I realize you weren’t making those points; I just wanted work them in!).
Marriage has nothing to do with raising children.
You couldn’t be more wrong. The term describes something that exists as the foundation of society. With respect to the reasons why the gov’t would want to be involved in marriage it has everything to do with children. Why would you need the gov’t to endorse / encourage / monitor your relationship otherwise? Do you want the gov’t involved with your friendships?
The local paper has printed many letters by gays with their reasons why same-sex “marriage” should be allowed – and this is Iowa where the court just made a fiat declaration that they can do so (yesterday the paper on the front page told us we have had 171 applications for same-sex marriage two counties since the decision on 4/27). I was permitted to have a guest column disputing the illogical reasons (I posted my column on my social commentary blog if you care to see it). I have gotten hate mail since telling me how ignorant I am, etc. The usual tripe from those “tolerant” people.
Ah, yes, the intolerance of the tolerant. Please post a link here to your guest column — I’d love to read it.
The “tolerant” crowd is usually given over to moral relativism, which makes their stance on “same sex marriage” that much more hypocritical. After all, whenever the people get to vote on it real marriage typically wins in a landslide (Prop. 8 was much closer than other races, because of the vast amounts of money and un-challenged lies by the opponents and the media). They always need the courts to press their cases.
When blacks fought for equal rights in the 60s, were they “intolerant” of people who thought they needed their own public bathrooms?
Give me a break.
As for voting on gay marriage, there are still parts of the US that would vote to deny rights to certain races. Would that be cool with you too?
And yes – it is the same thing.
Ryan there is a grave difference between racism and the desire to not promote sexual perversion, and you know that very well.
There is no right anywhere for same-sex marriage. Rights have boundaries, qualifications. Marriage is defined as a type of relationship between a man and a woman – a definition God gave at the beginning and a defintion that has been in every society in history. What you want is to redefine the term so as to be qualified for the right. When you redefine the term, then you cannot deny the “right” for incestuous marriages of any sort, nor can you deny polygamy, nor even bestiality. You would have no moral basis.
For the 100th time, skin color is morally neutral, sexual preferences are not. If I were black I’d be even more offended at your ridiculous notion that these are somehow equal.
Sexual preference absolutely is morally neutral. (In the sense of a preference for hetero- or homo-; obviously a sexual preference for, say, cheating is more morally complicated). When we had this discussion before and I asked you to name a special harm deriving from gay relationships, every harm you claimed was from some *other* activity to which you felt gays were prone — promiscuity, etc. You were unable to demonstrate any greater harm from gay relationships *themselves* than from straight.
The best you could do was to cite a slightly greater risk of infection from particular sex acts; sex acts which, in any case, straight folk engage in too.
The right of gays to marry is very, very comparable to the right to interracial marriage. A number of black people find this idea offensive, of course, since anti-gay sentiment has plenty of life still in some black communities. It’s shortsighted and sad.
“Sexual preference is absolutely morally neutral.” Says who? You? Since when are you the standard of morality? God says that homosexual behavior is wrong, and abomination before him. All sexual behavior has a moral aspect. Just asserting neutrality doesn’t make it so.
No, the “right’ of same-sex marriage is not even close to analogous to inter-racial marriage. Skin color does not change whether one is a man or a woman. The biology works with any color skin, but a man’s body was not designed for coupling with a man, nor was a woman’s body designed for female-to-female sex. Homosexual relations are only part of hedonism, since all they are about is sexual pleasure; there is no complementarianism, there is no becoming one flesh, there is no possibility of having children. There is nothing biologically or physiologically natural about same-sex behavior. Skin color does not alter the biology or physiology.
“Just asserting neutrality doesn’t make it so.”
I didn’t just assert it. I asked what special harm is innate to homosexual relationships, beyond what’s found equally in heterosexual ones. If something causes no harm, to self or others, how on earth is it immoral? (“On earth” being the operative words, I guess…). If you can’t point to any harm, you’re precisely the one who is “just asserting.”
Neil often says that “natural” doesn’t equal “moral.” You seem to be claiming the opposite, with the stuff about what bodies are designed for. But harm is the only morally relevant question here.
Homosexual sex between men has significant health risks asssociated with it, even beyond HIV/AIDS. Besides other infectious diseases, it is associated with a slew of other health risks.
I highly encourage you to investigate these.
If your claim is “it’s morally neutral because no one gets hurt and there are no health risks” and yet it can easily be shown how there are health risks and people get hurt, will, your claim isn’t going to hold up for very long.
Further, and I don’t mean this as a personal insult, but I think this shows a real flaw in your thinking. If we presented evidence to show how this is risky, dangerous, etc, would you change your mind and decide that it is now a morally illicit and non-neutral activity?
I have extreme doubts. Rather I suspect you are making conclusions based on a pre-determined ideology, and then trying to create arguments that support your ideology and/or your emotional thinking on the matter.
A superior and more sincere approach is to establish principles on morality, then apply them to the real world, and allow the conclusions to naturally follow. That is why I am so often forced to use the socratic method in dialog on these forums, because most the arguments being made against Christianity and Morality don’t actually have a foundation or a principle. Rather, ideology and/or emotion has dictated the answer in advance, and now logic is being fudged to try and fit the conclusion.
If gay sex were obviously a heinously evil thing with no redeeming qualities, I would have no hesitation in condemning it. But I might as well say that I’d condemn stamp collecting if it were obviously heinous and unredeemed: my eyes and ears tell a different story. My emotions about the matter trace a plain-as-daylight reality, which it pains me that others don’t see.
In some absurdly technical sense, I guess even a 2% greater chance of infection (or whatever the statistic was) would constitute a non-morally-neutral difference between gay and straight: you’re ever so slightly increasing the risk to society. But it would be the utmost absurdity to try to make a serious argument out of that. You increase the risk or the possible cost to society when you take antibiotics, when you drive at rush hour, when you skateboard or smoke a cigarette or drink a beer, and when you choose one heterosexual act over another.
I freely allow, it would take a *lot* more than you’ve got to convince me that the harms outweigh the charms. You’d have to demonstrate that the harm from censuring and obstructing gay relationships — legally or socially — is less than that from the relationships themselves.
And I vigorously doubt that you can show there’s any greater *psychological* harm innate in gay relationships, except of course the harm from being persecuted. Psychological harm seems rather more morally weighty here than minor health differences between this and that sex act. The latter’s closer to the moral status of eating a jelly donut.
I think I’ll pass on the jelly donuts. Forever.
Once again you are making up your morality as you go along, not to mention fighting against something I never mentioned. I’m not obstructing gay relationships. I have know and still know many gays and have never done a thing to obstruct their relationships.
But once again you prove the point of my post and beg the question and assume that oxymoronic “same sex marriage” is already a right and that we are denying it. I know a “few” Christians and can’t think of one (seriously — not one) that is trying to prevent gays from being together. We just object to them forcing radical changes to schools, churches, etc. in pursuit of their dream of (forced) acceptance.
Obstructing gay relationships “legally or socially,” I said. “Harassing” might have been a better word than “obstructing,” since social disapproval doesn’t literally prevent gay relationships in most cases. (There are cases where it clearly can, however, such as while a gay person is still under the guardianship of disapproving parents).
So now, in the name of morality, I must approve of what others do lest I be harassing them?
Must that cut both ways?
You may find that your positions are far more coherent and far less constantly changing if you established a series of moral principles, and then applied them to the world without predetermined bias.
For what it’s worth, homosexual activity is insanely unhealthy.
Here is a link that is solid: http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/homosexuality/ho0075.html
Too be honest, I’m not going to go digging around the internet for more on this topic, because google returns unpleasant things when I start using any search terms that involve “homosexual.”
We’re talking massively increased cancer risks, and lifespan decreases in the range of 20 years.
In terms of average number of partners, you may find this interesting: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_average_number_of_sex_partners_a_gay_man_has_in_a_lifetime
Here is a quote: A far-ranging study of homosexual men published in 1978 revealed that 75 percent of self-identified, white, gay men admitted to having sex with more than 100 different males in their lifetime: 15 percent claimed 100-249 sex partners; 17 percent claimed 250- 499; 15 percent claimed 500-999; and 28 percent claimed more than 1,000 lifetime male sex partners. By 1984, after the AIDS epidemic had taken hold, homosexual men were reportedly curtailing promiscuity, but not by much. Instead of more than 6 partners per month in 1982, the average non-monogamous respondent in San Francisco reported having about 4 partners per month in 1984.
Prima facie, I think we can probably agree that a person inserting an object in their rectum thousands of times over the course of years is going to be bad for their health in significant ways.
Luke, thanks for the stats and the links. The promiscuity of gays is beyond belief. Even if there was no risk of disease, what kind of person has sex with that many different people? Even if it were hetero sex in those quantities it would be bizarre.
Homosexual behavior is harmless? How about reviewing the medical studies of the diseases that are only predominantly among the homosexual population (the heterosexuals with the same problems are the promiscuous ones who also practice sexual perversions), let alone the damage to the body caused by its misuse? Studies prove that homosexuals live 25-35 years less than heterosexuals. Suicide is at a much higher rate with gays that with the general population. It is psychologically harmful, as any unbiased research would prove. So there is plenty of harm done. Nevertheless, even if there were absolutely no physical or mental harm, homosexual behavior would still be immoral because it is against the body’s design purpose and because God said so. After all, there is such thing as an ultimate truth. Who are you, by the way, to determine what constitutes morality? It becomes your opinion versus mine or Neil’s or anyone else’s. You have no standard by which to measure against.
Glenn, homosexual relationships are no more about sex than heterosexual relationships. All the gay couples I know are together for exactly the same reasons as the heterosexual couples I know. They love each other, and want to share their lives, outside the bedroom as much as inside. I don’t know how you can look into the minds of certain people and know what their motivations are, let alone paint them all with the same brush.
You can’t use the Bible’s stance on homosexuality to justify denying a group of people rights. We live in a society where the laws are not determined by religion. Even if you could demonstrate that homosexual behavior is harmful, that is not enough to deny rights to a group of people. If it were harmful for people with heart conditions to have sex, which in some cases it is – that could prevent them from having children, and make sexual relations harmful. Should they be prohibited from marrying? Of course not.
I may be a bit jaded by the world, Ryan, but when you wrote, “All the gay couples I know are together for exactly the same reasons as the heterosexual couples I know. They love each other, and want to share their lives, outside the bedroom as much as inside.”
I snickered, because I wouldn’t describe most heterosexual couples I know in those terms. Some. Not all by any stretch of the imagination.
As for rights. Where do rights come from?
The statistics have always flown in the face of the media creation that “most” gays are just monogamous homebodies — http://secularheretic-st.blogspot.com/2009/07/australia-needs-new-strategy-t o-combat.html .
Now to address a few problems with your anti-religious bigotry:
1. That First Amendment thingy. We’re allowed to let our religious views inform our political views whether you like it or not.
2. My religion tells me that stealing, perjury and murder are also wrong. Do you object to me letting those views inform my political views, or just the views you don’t like?
3. Lots of churches are pro-gay all the way, such as the UCC and the Episcopals. I don’t recall you objecting to their advancement of the pro-gay cause. Shouldn’t their religious views be hidden from the public dialogue?
4. Just like the post noted, you are begging the question. You claim that we are denying gays “rights” but you must change the definition of the word in question to draw that conclusion. The debate is whether to change the word and give them a new right; you cheat and pretend that we’ve already changed the word and given them the right and then insist that we’re denying it. Sadly, pro-gay apologists do it so reflexively that I doubt you realize what you are doing.
Whoa, back up – I didn’t mean you couldn’t use your views to back your political position. It would be dishonest of you not to. But the rules as laid out in the Bible should not be directly translated to the laws of the land, since many people are not Christians. I don’t want a law that says I need to be in church Sunday morning, or that I cannot say something blasphemous. If there is to be a law that allows only certain pairs of people to legally marry each other, then it needs to be argued based on secular reasoning, in my opinion.
I don’t think you got your morals from religion. If you had not become a Christian, I don’t think you would be a murderer, or a liar, or a thief. At least I hope not. Give yourself some credit. Your dogs (which are awesome by the way) seem to be nice to each other – I’m just guessing here, I could be wrong – so they have some sort of primitive moral code. Otherwise, whichever one is a little bit stronger would kill the other in order to get two dinners one night.
I keep getting asked here why gays should have the right to marry, and I don’t really know what to say. I don’t think that burden of proof should be on me. I can’t see a reason why friends of mine who are gay should not marry if they so choose, and I don’t see why people are so hell bent on messing with other people’s lives.
A few things:
1) So, the default position is that the burden of evidence is not on those demanding some new right, but rather on those who seek to deny it? if so, please make your argument against polygamy.
2) You write, “. But the rules as laid out in the Bible should not be directly translated to the laws of the land, since many people are not Christians.” You have given a premise, and a conclusion, but you have not filled in any steps inbetween. Why should moral laws from scripture not be the law of the land? Does being in scripture somehow disqualify them? if so, how and why? When one considers that the founders and lawmakers of this country had a clear intent of our laws being grounded in certain scriptural understandings, you are really arguing for a fundamental overhaul of the entire American legal system. That needs better reasoning than “Because there are some non-Christians.” This argument sounds suspiciously like “I don’t want to therefore I shouldn’t have to.”
3) How about this, in a free country Christians should have the right to live under a Christian legal code, because living under a secular legal code is an infringement on their free practice of religion, since secular legal codes are clearly hostile towards religion as is evidenced by leading secularists like Dawkins or the bastion of secularism the French Revolution. What this really comes down to is you deciding you get to dominate others based on your opinions. Ryan, that’s bad logic and has a lot to do with what I discussed earlier in this thread, with ideology and/or emotion making a decision, and then logic being fudged to try and support it.
4) Should the measure of our legal codes be “do they draw from scripture?” Or should the measure be “Are they in conformity with truth and justice?”
5) Finally, please explain to me how legal codes are anything OTHER THAN one group imposing their views on another group. (Hint, you can’t unless you acknowledge that justice exists outside the human person).
1) Yes that is my position. My argument against polygamy is that there cannot be an equal relationship between more than two people, and any one person in the relationship would always be in a minority position. In a two person relationship each party is a controlling partner, to borrow from business terminology. This is the reason for polygamy. To reduce the influence of each of the wives to the point where she has no say is the overall relationship.
2) Of course being in scripture does not disqualify something from becoming law. The Bible is not the first, nor is it the last book to reference morality. Use it all you want. Don’t even bother with the founding fathers arguments, since very few were Christians.
3) I don’t know what your point is. You don’t feel secularists have the right to dominate? Then who does? I don’t know either. I think if we really thought about it, we’d probably agree on almost everything.
4) The legal codes are not all about justice. They are about building a society that can function well. They are about giving everyone just enough rights so that liberty exists, but anarchy does not. I like the idea of giving everyone access to the “pursuit of happiness”. Anything that infringes on someone’s ability to pursue a life of happiness, within reason, should be restricted.
5) I’m sick of acknowledging that X exists outside of Y just so that you can ask another questions that gets a little bit closer to your proof that God exists. You over-think things. For the record, no, I don’t think “justice” exists outside of humans at all. I actually hate the word justice – I think it’s for vindictive people, and those who don’t like to forgive.
Ryan,
You’ve really played your hand tonight.
1) “You don’t feel secularists have the right to dominate? Then who does? ”
2) “You over-think things.”
I ask a simple question:
Where do rights come from?
Surely in all this talk about rights, we can speak of where they come from?
Our legal and human rights? Those come from consensus. Humans over the years have honed our system of rights (and wrongs) to approximate the ideal rules that maintain a just and fair society.
Where do you think our rights came from?
If you are going to refute an argument I never made, you might want to get your facts straight. From STR.org and this post — http://4simpsons.wordpress.com/2007/12/28/fundy-founding-fathers/
“The phrase “Founding Fathers” is a proper noun. It refers to a specific group of men, the 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention. There were other important players not in attendance, like Jefferson, whose thinking deeply influenced the shaping of our nation. These 55 Founding Fathers, though, made up the core.
The denominational affiliations of these men were a matter of public record. Among the delegates were 28 Episcopalians, 8 Presbyterians, 7 Congregationalists, 2 Lutherans, 2 Dutch Reformed, 2 Methodists, 2 Roman Catholics, 1 unknown, and only 3 deists-Williamson, Wilson, and Franklin-this at a time when church membership entailed a sworn public confession of biblical faith.”
Now you are just making things up and projecting them on others. Where is a universal rule against this in a molecules-to-man worldview?
OK, that’s a little bizarre.
They come from consensus?
So as long as the current consensus says X, it is true?
Or is it the consensus of all human history?
Am I bound by the consensus of those who are already dead and gone?
It can clearly be seen that most societies throughout history were neither just nor fair, so your argument is rather muddled and confusing.
Neil, I don’t think Jefferson was a Christian, and many of the men who had a role in forming the country said many things that indicated they were not religious. The fact that many were registered with certain churches means nothing, since failing to register at a church would have been a serious detriment to the business dealings of many of these men.
On another note:
Why must you constantly ridicule my arguments? As soon as I give a valid reason to believe something, you say I can’t possibly justify it because I am an atheist. I have a brain Neil. I can use reason to formulate an opinion. I thought for quite a while about polygamy, and I came up with a very good reason why is wrong. You didn’t even comment on my argument, you commented on my “worldview”.
I could not even find a Bible verse that deals with polygamy, in fact, several verses seem to condone it. It may be that I just don’t know where to look, but a quick check online showed that a lot of Christians seem to have trouble finding a Biblical basis for denying multiple partners in marriage.
As for justice, I don’t like the concept or justice when it comes to wrongdoing. I don’t believe in “an eye for an eye”. I feel sick when I hear of people defending the death penalty because that is the only way they can have “justice”. That’s why I don’t like the word.
LCB, Yes, you are bound by consensus if you choose to live in a society that values the views of its citizens. And yes, many will take into account the views of those who are dead and gone if the consensus agrees with them – Jesus is a good example. Consensus does not mean truth, it just means that we have made the best decision we can.
Your first paragraph seems to contradict. Of course you are right that we shouldn’t make you go to church. That would clearly violate the 1st Amendment. But opposing same sex marriage does not require the Bible. We aren’t making gays go to church. The Bible opposes murder, and we can use that to fuel our political views as well.
The dogs are just nuts, so I won’t talk about their morality. They are sort-of living in sin, as both are neutered
.
You are correct in saying I didn’t get my morals from religion — or at least just from religion.
I have explained many times why they don’t have the “right” to marry: They can get married in many churches, so they actually have the “right” already. We’re talking about gov’t recognition here, and there is no need for that. The definition has not been changed, so there is no right to deny.
The burden of proof is on you, because you want to change the word. The burden of proof is on you as well because gays can never provide a mother and a father to a child, and that is why the gov’t gets involved to begin with. Do you want the gov’t to regulate your friendships?
We aren’t messing with anyone’s lives. You are asking us to “mess in their lives” and give gov’t validation.
You are messing in other people’s lives by the inevitable consequences of kids being taught this behavior as normal.
You are messing in other people’s lives by the inevitable impacts to religious freedom.
We could just get rid of all recognition for marriage then, but that would upset more people than just allowing gays to marry.
I’d be OK with that, if it would stop the teaching of perversions to 4 year olds and the reduction in religious freedoms.
We don’t get our morals from religion, rather we get them from God, who planted in every person’s conscience the moral law. That is why even pagans don’t murder or steal.
As for why gays should not marry, that is simple. They have no qualifications to do so. Marriage is defined by society since recorded history as between members of the opposite sex.
Would you believe the same about incestuous marriages as you do about gay marriage? Or what about polygamy? At least with incest and polygamy the biology and physiology works!
No he didn’t plant anything in my head.
Qualifications to marry? History changes my friend. There are many things that have changed in the past 100 years that have endured for the entirety of recorded history.
My views on polygamy are detailed in this response to LCB – point #1.
As for incest, the biology does not work. Genetic defects are highly likely with incestuous relationships among consenting adults – I can’t think of a reason to prevent relationships between close relatives who do not have biological children.
That is a disingenuous, girlie-man comment and re-proves my post for about the 20th time. You are cheating and changing the definition first then whining about the alleged Civil Rights being violated. It is pathetic how reflexively it is done and how so few call you on it.
All rights have qualifications, boundaries. You must be qualified to be entitled to a right. That’s why 16-year-olds can’t vote – they aren’t qualified. That’s why blind people can’t drive – they aren’t qualified. The right of marriage requires two people of the opposite sex or you are not qualified. You have to redefine the word “marriage” to qualify for your definition, a definition that is contrary to the historical definition since history has been recorded!
Glenn, I like your distinction about rights and qualifications. I’ll send you nickel every time I borrow that.
It is hard to take serious arguments that are so transparently made up on the go.
Skin color is morally neutral. Sexual behavior is not. It is disgusting to have the Civil Rights movement co-opted by the homosexual agenda, and your anti-black bigotry over their alleged discrimination is disgusting as well. How shortsighted and sad of you.
Oh my gaaawd Neil, I can’t believe you just called me a racist. I do hope you’ll take that back in no uncertain terms. Of *course* there’s anti-gay sentiment in black communities. I’d be the first to note that there’s likewise tons of support for gay rights in black communities.
I’ll be glad to take back my previous comment as soon as you retract yours. We all can write things too quickly and I am glad to let anyone clarify or even retract their comments if they regret them. Let me know.
But my assessment of your comment, as currently posted, will not change.
And don’t use the Lord’s name in vain here regardless of how you spell it.
You really should just read what I wrote one more time, Neil, I’m innocent. But I can clarify at least that I didn’t, by “anti-gay sentiment,” mean “personal animosity towards gays.” I know people object to gay relations for reasons — religious, cultural — as in, for instance, your own case. I just find those reasons terribly short-sighted.
That’s actually the first time someone’s objected when I’ve said “oh my G-d.” I hadn’t even realized that Christians still feel about it the way they do about using “Jesus” as an exclamation. (I do think of that one as a mild cuss word). Different cultures.
You’re kidding right?
We had to fight for the right to live; a far cry from fighting for the right to marry. In fact they wanted us to marry…kept us quiet if we were allowed spouses and children. The problems came when we wanted fair pay and education. When we protested about having our sons tied to truck bumpers and dragged through the streets for some “Boys will be boys fun.”
I’m sorry if you want sympathy or someone to jump on your side so you have the right to marry, but this is NOT the way to go. Its more than offensive, its a slap in the face to all those who died after being ripped from their beds in the middle of the night because the color of their skin.
No sir. It is not the same. Its 2009 slavery ended (legally) in 1863. Why are there more ‘gays’ in Congress than black people?
mizclark, I didn’t equate the civil rights movement with the gay rights movement. I specifically compared gay marriage to interracial marriage.
Be careful about assuming I’m gay because I support gay rights.
Interracial marriage = marriage. There is nothing unnatural about it. Intersex marriage = oxymoron.
That comment was also for Ryan and anyone who makes the analogy in the first place. You cannot compare race with sexual preference PERIOD!
I do not assume anything seas really. The argument is for gay marriage and the YOU in my comment is for anyone claiming I’m not ‘down’ with their struggle because its the same thing. It is not.
Actually, you could click my name on my comment, since it goes to my website http://sanityinanupsidedownworld.blogspot.com/
I change between that one and my apologetics blog depending on what your topic is about!
Great letter, Glenn. I’ll link to that in my next Roundup.
Is there some reason you didn’t actually link to the blog you were criticizing (which is to say, ours)?
Because your blog title and header are offensive, and your content is poor. Once link per lifetime, my friend. But thanks for validating that I didn’t make it up.
That’s a pretty cheap cover-up for a mild form of intellectual dishonesty. If I hadn’t visited back here, there’s no way we would ever have known you were continuing to make comments about our writing. Nor would your readers be able to read our words in context, and make any proper judgements for themselves on the matter.
Whether you love someone or disagree with them, you should be proud enough of your words to say it loud enough that all can hear.
Thanks for the tip, but I’m not convinced. I don’t always link to profane blogs and just comment on what I read. Sometimes that is like giving attention to the kid who is misbehaving. Why encourage that? If people want the link they can ask for it.
Feel free to refute my reasoning here if you think it was out of context. I thought the whole thing was rather straightforward and a glaring example of the disingenuous arguments of your crowd.
It’s not that the quote is out of context– in my opinion, too, it’s not– but that nobody would have any way of knowing this. That’s why it’s generally considered good form to cite your sources, though of course there’s no “official” rules list for blogging.
The appropriate thing to do, if you have some moral objection to sending traffic to another website, is still to identify the website in question.
But hey, whatever. Your blog, your rules. It’s not like you make yourself out to be the New York Times or something.
I agree with Neil. I will never link to a site I think is immoral or has false teachings. Why lead people to poison?
Ha there is no fallacy here my friend. I can personally guarentee Neil probably cringed at the header of your blog. No need to be offended..he’s mostly consistant
Well, if you want to be technical, I suppose you were actually criticizing a different blog that we were linking to, and then leaving your comment on our site rather than the blog which originated the quote. But either way…
LCB said: So now, in the name of morality, I must approve of what others do lest I be harassing them?
And Neil said: Apparently Seas is being immoral and harassing you because he doesn’t approve of what you do.
Yeesh, I’m really not getting read very carefully today. I wasn’t censoring y’all, I was saying if you want *me* to get on board with disapproval of gay relations, you’ll have to show me that this disapproval would be less harmful than the relations themselves.
As for “making up my morality as I go along” and the like, my guiding principle is simplicity itself and hasn’t changed: that morality is about the questions of suffering and flourishing. Your own morality is much more obscure than that.
The Liberal concepts of “suffering” and “flourishing” tend to be very, very short-sighted. I’ll be gays thought they were flourishing until they got AIDS (at least the friends I had who died from AIDS seemed to think so).
Actually I quite agree that liberal concepts of flourishing have sometimes been short-sighted. The good life is certainly not the crudely hedonist one, for instance, nor necessarily one of personal accomplishment. My own understanding of flourishing is much informed by certain Asian religious views on what happiness really is.
I don’t for instance have one fixed model of how lovers must arrange themselves, certainly nothing along the lines of “no sex before marriage,” “never divorce,” etc. But I do think that an obsessive relationship to sex — where it crowds out more abiding heart concerns — is the wrong road. And getting *too* creative with your arrangements is very often a sign of a compulsion.
“The good life is certainly not the crudely hedonist one, for instance, nor necessarily one of personal accomplishment.”
Why not? If I believe that no one else is real or has value, and what’s true for me is true for me, and I define that as the good life, then why not?
You can not make such a statement without an appeal to an objective morality, which you have indicated you absolutely disbelieve exists.
The inconsistencies you are engaging in to try and maintain your positions are impressive, but ultimately are inconsistencies. Have you considered a bit of Occam’s Razor, that perhaps the problem is in your positions and believes themselves?
No no no my amigo, I absolutely have not denied objective morality, I’ve corrected you on that before. I’m too tired tonight to explain again, maybe tomorrow.
I really don’t know what you’re referring to as inconsistencies. I try to work out what’s best for folks. Accepting gay love seems very much the best way forward.
Re gay promiscuity, it’s significant that your stats are for men and not women. As has been said by someone or other and as I’ve repeated here before, if all women were interested in unlimited anonymous sex, there would be not a few straight men in line at the bathhouse.
Do you consider lesbianism therefore less blameworthy than male homosexuality? Also because they don’t presumably court heightened health risks?
Wow, you guys prove the point of my post so often one would think I’m paying you to do so.
Have we objected to gays loving each other? Not that I’ve seen. We do recommend against expressing that love physically, because with most “love” relationships sex is not appropriate.
Of course none of this changes the debate about “same sex marriage.”
The volume of gay vs. lesbian promiscuity is just more evidence of the very real differences between men and women.
I thought you might say that. I mean gay romantic love.
But you haven’t answered the question. Do you object to lesbianism, and if so, why?
Where do rights come from?
Not sure who you are referring to. Yes, lesbian behavior is wrong as well. Though you’re a little off topic now. Even if someone didn’t object to the behavior then they still don’t meet the definition of marriage.
Re. “gay romantic love” — I knew what you meant. I still submit they should abstain from sex.
Umm, still haven’t answered the question: why?
I think this is the heart of the topic, actually. I can’t believe you’d object to gay marriage if you felt celebratory about gay relationships, whatever your “changes the definition” arguments. And at the heart, it seems maybe you have not one non-religious reason why gay sex *itself* is wrong. (“Lesbianism” is my shorthand, since it helps clear away the peripheral issues). Am I wrong?
Seas, give it up. You just keep proving my point. Your anti-religious bigotry really gets the best of you.
Go look into natural law. You don’t even need the Bible to realize gay sex is wrong. Though of course, you should always start and end with the Bible for the truth.
I do not consider it less blameworthy.
You are the one who seeks to make moral judgments based on the effect of the action, as opposed to the action itself, so that’s your call to make.
I was merely providing you with full information.
If morality is situational or judged via its consequences, it is not objective.
LCB said: If morality is situational or judged via its consequences, it is not objective.
That doesn’t follow at all. There are objective facts to be determined about what maximizes flourishing. Not easily determined, but they’re still objective.
So, why is lesbianism blameworthy, if not because of consequences?
It does follow, since it presents a system that is mutually to morality based on principles. Infact it is an entire school of moral thought, called consequentialism.
At this point I don’t think you understand what the terms being used actually mean, and your arguments are really grasping at straws. You may find it helpful to take a bit of a break from the discussion and re-organized your thoughts, because they are getting very very scattered.
In the mean time, you’ve been presented with overwhelming evidence that homosexual activity is very bad, and obviously far worse than some mild social stigma, since one actually kills you and deprives you of life. I look forward to you following through and changing your position.
I noticed how Seas changed the subject to lesbianism when confronted with the evidence of health risks. Right off the script.
*That is mutually exclusive to morality based on principles, whoops for the typo.
LCB said: it does follow, since it presents a system that is mutually exclusive to morality based on principles.
What is consideration of the suffering and happiness of sentient beings, if not a principle? And surely there are precious few “thou shalt not” principles which would translate to a moral action in every situation. In any case, I don’t know how you can deny that certain strategies for maximizing happiness are objectively more effective than others.
The other half of what makes morality objective — how you derive “ought” from “is,” as some would have it (not I) — is as follows: since I know you care as much about your own well-being as I do about mine, I realize that an objective yardstick (such as an unbiased telepath) could not judge mine more important.
–
LCB said: …overwhelming evidence that homosexual activity is very bad, and obviously far worse than some mild social stigma, since one actually kills you and deprives you of life.
LCB, you’re *rather* inflating the significance of your evidence! Homosexuality is not a death sentence. I’m sure straight people in deeply AIDS-ridden parts of Africa die as young as gay men in New York did in the 80s.
Health risks which are associated in some degree with sex of any stripe, just do not strike me as something innately heinous and evil about homosexuality. If you think that contradicts my original position, then perhaps I didn’t express it well enough. I think it would be absurdly counterproductive and harmful to argue that gay folk should all be lifelong celibates. Of course there’s recklessness to be found in parts of gay culture which doesn’t serve it well, but that says nothing about gayness as such.
Hi LCB, I didn’t quite realize what you meant by this bit the first time I read it, now I do:
“…overwhelming evidence that homosexual activity is very bad, and obviously far worse than some mild social stigma…”
But the question isn’t whether gay sex is more harmful than a stigma, it’s whether it’s more harmful for gays to have their romantic life or suppress it altogether, impose lifelong celibacy on themselves. (Or get “cured,” of course, ye gods…). I’m sure you’d want this to come about through gays’ own volition, not through theocracy. (Or I hope so, anyway). But that’s immaterial; you still think the best thing, the best solution, would be for gays to stop being (actively) gay. That’s the conclusion you think I should be forced to as well, by your claims about health risks and such. I find that scenario, besides impossible, a much greater harm than some increased infection risk from certain sex acts or whatever.
(I still haven’t read your link, I might one of these days, but surely you realize the Catholic church is hardly an unbiased source. If that’s the best you can do, it renders the findings *highly* questionable).
And contra Glenn, gay relationships are wonderfully beneficial: those in the relationships are fulfilled; I’m happy they’re happy, I get to enjoy the extra warmth they give off, their open-heartedness. (On good days, obviously). Loves and friendships are the absolute glue of society, they’re the *first* good.
Don’t forget the lesbian non-consequentialism question.
I’ve sat on the fence long enough and you all have to admit seas has the closet argument for why ‘gay marriage’ should be allowed in society.
It brings up something Neil said earlier about not wanting to be forced into particular way of thinking based on a change in legislation (correct me if I am wrong Neil), but I think you guys have failed to notice that your logic is flawed. Seas has successfully turned it around and used it against you. Its exactly what is being done to homosexuals. What sin is being referenced here? I know Paul was talking about males and females in 1 Cor 7, but if you go back and re read it…Matching it up with the culture of Corinth at the time Paul could have very well been talking about homosexual relationships too.
Even Abraham was given grace as he made his transition from an idol worshiper, Jacob, David, and Solomon the polygamists, Barbabas the murderer, Pilate, even the thief crucified with Christ. I mean who are we kidding here? Gay Marriage is a sin, okay so is murder. But Neil is perched on his soapbox daily for the billions of unborn children murdered daily. For what? A law meant to save billions of young hard-headed girls from butchers who just want their money and care nothing for their lives or the lives of their children. That being said love of the world starts with love of oneself, and if allowing a homosexual to marry allows them to finally learn to love themselves as well as their respective spouse then maybe we can all learn to love each other. The new marketing campaign is WWJD?
I think he would err on the side of LOVE. Better to marry than burn…..just sayin.
My morality is well reasoned and based on solid principles, all of which can clearly be articulated and laid out as clear logical arguments. If any portion of it is obscure I can detail in for you.
All we are doing, seas, is taking what you seem to assert are moral principles, and applying them to other situations. It isn’t our fault that your moral principles lack solid foundations. However, an honest consideration of the situation would probably reveal to you that the problem lies in your moral principles, not our applications of them.
As for harrassing others by simply disagreeing with them, well, that’s pretty flimsy friend, and you can do better than that. But I’ll bite: consult the health info I posted in this thread, and consider this:
A person can not be offended or marginalized by the opinions of others when they are dead. Opposing homosexual activity is the best course of action because it seeks to allow others who are in high risk behavior to live longer. By supporting homosexuality, you are contributing to their early death.
I note that none of you have answer Seaofbrightjuice’s original question, which was how homosexuality bi itself is immoral, or causes harm to the self or others. Being a gay male doesn’t automatically mean you’ve had sex with another dude, you know; that’s not what homosexuality is.
Oops, that’s a hilarious typo. Meant to type by itself.
Best typo of the week!
Hi Fox,
We’re familiar with the distinction between homosexuality and homosexual behavior. We’re talking about the behavior here.
If you want to talk about God, then thoughts do count as well. That’s really bad news for all of us, though for those who trust in him there is good news in Jesus.
Fox,
I’m not sure anyone here is asserting that having homosexual tendencies is in itself immoral (I refuse to stereotype people and categorize them as “homosexuals”).
Immorality is a matter of actions, and not orientations.
I agree completely. I tell my wife that she’s not really female, she’s just been having “girlie” thoughts.
Neil said: Your anti-religious bigotry really gets the best of you.
I simply asked (and doubted) if you have a non-religious argument for the heart of the matter — since as we both acknowledge, a religious one won’t fly in the public square. How is that anti-religious bigotry? You like calling me a bigot tonight…
–
I turn to the topic of lesbianism as another attempt to get you to hew to the heart of the matter, namely the question of what is wrong, what is harmful in gay sex *as such* — not promiscuity, not particular sex acts. Please recall that it was I who brought up your claims about health risks in my very opening comment.
Haven’t visited the link yet, by the way.
Yes, you’ve been a bigot, and now a liar. Or you have spectacularly poor reading skills. On this post alone and countless times on this blog I’ve outlined non-religious arguments that are bulletproof. Of course, those advancing the homosexual agenda have been trained by the media and society that they can ignore the obvious and go straight to their “Civil Rights” canard.
Once again, you are trying to change the definition of a word in a deceptive way. “Same sex marriage” is an oxymoron. The gov’t gets involved because by nature and design heterosexual couples produce the next generation of children, and ONLY heterosexual couples can provide a mother and a father to a child. Are there exceptions with single parents and infertile couples? Of course, but that doesn’t mean we have to nuke the definition of marriage. It is all about what gov’t has a reason to regulate.
Then of course there is natural law, which demonstrates that homosexual behavior is unnatural.
See? No mentions of God. Of course, if you’d like to know his views — and you really, really should — I’ll be glad to share them.
In the mean time, please stop lying, embarrassing yourself and wasting my time by saying that I haven’t offered non-religious arguments.
Careful who you accuse of poor reading skills. I wrote…
“I simply asked (and doubted) if you have a non-religious argument for the heart of the matter”
…having made clear in my previous comment what I mean by the heart of the matter:
“I think this is the heart of the topic, actually. I can’t believe you’d object to gay marriage if you felt celebratory about gay relationships, whatever your ‘changes the definition’ arguments. And at the heart, it seems maybe you have not one non-religious reason why gay sex *itself* is wrong. (‘Lesbianism’ is my shorthand, since it helps clear away the peripheral issues).”
I didn’t say you have no secular arguments about gay marriage. That would be quite ridiculous, I’ve engaged them directly many times. I find them terribly flimsy, but that’s another story.
So, is “natural law” your argument for the heart of the matter (shorthand “lesbianism”)? Wikipedia doesn’t give much insight into what you mean to say by that in this particular case.
I’m assuming that was meant to be funny.
The definition of the word in question is a flimsy argument? Heh.
The fact that gays can never provide a mother and a father to a child is flimsy? Heh.
The fact that it requires a man and a woman to produce a child is flimsy? Heh.
I mean that I googled “natural law,” I got the vaguest sense of it, can’t figure out how you mean for it to apply to lesbianism, would you mind giving a hint.
It isn’t natural, even by the fictional macro-evolution standards.
Macro evolution is fiction, I’ll give you that. There’s no such thing.
Would those of you who are against gay marriage be opposed to granting all the legal rights that stem from marriage to same-sex couples, if it were not called marriage?
If so, why?
And if not, isn’t this just a “what’s in a name” argument?
It isn’t just a name argument. The argument is that you can’t put same-sex couples on the same moral footing as marriage. Live-in heterosexual couples aren’t entitled to marriage rights either. The “rights” – or shall we say benefits – of marriage derive from the state with the purpose of fostering the family, which is the fundamental building block of society. The family unit benefits society, while there is nothing beneficial about same-sex coupling.
Any argument about ability for hospital visitations, medical decisions, funeral decisions, etc for gay partners are useless since all these can be aquired by powers-of-attorney and other legal contracts. I know this is possible because we have made arrangements in the event my wife and I died together (such as car accident in our frequent travels) or are seriously injured unable to make medical decisions; we want to circumvent all family members because of our different worldviews so friends have the authority for all these decisions. So don’t whine about not being able because you’re not married.
Tax benefits, retirement annuities, health benefits are all for fostering a family unit and not fostering the unhealthy, degenerate and destructive homosexual lifestyle which has no benefit to society.
Ryan wrote: I actually hate the word justice – I think it’s for vindictive people, and those who don’t like to forgive.
And Neil wrote: OK, that’s a little bizarre.
For the record, I’ve developed the same reaction as Ryan’s to the majority of instances where the word is invoked. There are exceptions — in contexts like “social justice” it seems to mean just fairness, making sure no-one gets shortchanged. But yes, “bringing to justice” is often weaselly, hiding small-hearted motives behind a vague and hallowed word. It usually translates directly to “giving ‘em what they deserve!” where our only concern should be “preventing them from doing further harm.”
I think you have a nave understanding of human behavior. One way to prevent harm is to have consequences for actions. It is a great deterrent. In my experience, “social justice” is a weasel phrase for taking from producers and giving to non-producers.
Yeah, you’ll recall I mentioned deterrence as a real consideration last time we talked about justice, in a conversation about hell a few months ago. I teach kindergarten, I couldn’t get through the day without some mild deterrents in the toolbox. But Bubba argued — I can’t recall whether you agreed with him or not — that punishment is a good in itself, regardless of deterrence considerations or what have you.
Of course preventing harm is a complex question. What I object to is the feeling that the suffering of someone who’s made others suffer is a good in itself.
Sorry Neil I was grand standing
I am very well aware of the statistics, and apparently a government stamp will solve everything or it wouldn’t be apart of the political agenda election after election.
This issue is about money plain and simple,if it weren’t homosexuals wouldn’t care one iota about a sheet a paper with a government seal.
To err on the side of love proves everything. Tell me how is it going to change your life or the lives of your children if the law is changed tomorrow?
I don’t believe I quoted you saying the government should regulate their behavior. This is the quote I was referring to:
If I got it wrong, then what did you mean by this comment? You will allow them a sinful relationship as long as there is hope for redemption at a later date when they go and sin no more? Sorry but the Christians did just that: forcing radical changes to schools, churches, etc in the pursuit of a dream of (forced) acceptance.
And when they were unsuccessful or run out of some schools or towns they’ve infiltrated the government. Free-will is God given and forcing God’s love will drive you crazy. Ask Satan…fool worked so hard he began to think he was better/higher than God.
More children exposed to perversions — http://www.massresistance.org/
Loss of religious freedoms.
When did I deny them relationships, ever?
You haven’t which is why a piece of paper with a government seal is meaningless in the grand scheme of things.
It won’t change what has been written. God’s law is supreme to man’s law anyday. Jesus said love each other as we love ourselves. I don’t mean to belittle arguements with the ‘let them eat cake’ response, but its a step in the direction of peace.
It seems people are only able to hear the Father when it is still and quiet. Give them what they want and trust Him to take care of the rest.
Yes, God is in control, but He also told us not to withhold good when it is in our power to give it.
Your flexibility and your largeness of heart are moving, mizclark, thank you. Impressive and humbling. I’ve been cheered by your independence and reflectiveness before; they’re particularly charming here.
(To avoid confusion: I was replying to mizclark’s comment beginning “I’ve sat on the fence…”. The thread got too long and skinny though I guess, and the internets won’t let me use the direct reply function).
I used to wonder how narrow the columns would get. One word? One letter?
Ryan said, “I could not even find a Bible verse that deals with polygamy, in fact, several verses seem to condone it. It may be that I just don’t know where to look, but a quick check online showed that a lot of Christians seem to have trouble finding a Biblical basis for denying multiple partners in marriage.”
Well, you obviously haven’t run into to many Christians who know their Bible! The Bible NEVER condones polygamy – it only reports it. If you are truly interested a biblical basis for denying polygamy, check out my newest post at:
http://watchmansbagpipes.blogspot.com/2009/07/gods-view-of-polygamy.html
I didn’t say there wasn’t a verse which deals with polygamy, but I rad your post, and the Bible is not very clear o the matter. It doesn’t specifically say thou shalt not have more than one wife, and I don’t think it’s because they ran out of papyrus. Reporting polygamy without condemning it, in a book that supposedly lays out our moral code is a little more than an oversight. You’d think that if God wrote it, he’d have hired a good editor.
I don’t need the Bible’s view on polygamy anyways, I came up with a reason to condemn it on my own, and I think it’s pretty solid.
Cute soundbite. Cute and ignorant. Probably gets high fives on the atheist sites, but just exposes your lack of serious study over here.
Relax and take a joke. It’s a serious point as well though. For being the one and only word of God, who is perfect, it’s a pretty confusing book.
The condemnation of polygamy is very clear throughout the Old Testament.
This is both explicit in the text and implicit in that whenever people take multiple wives REALLY REALLY BAD THINGS HAPPEN because of it.
As for difficulty in reading scripture, when was the last time you sat down and tried to earnestly read scripture and enter into the mystery? You might find it a bit easier than you thought if you don’t have a hostile hermeneutic.
Let’s see, numerous passages in Scripture point to the fact that God intended marriage to be between one man and one woman, yet you say it isn’t clear? I’d say it’s because you refuse to see the truth of the matter – your bias against God and Scripture blinds you to the truth of what is being said. That is the only thing that can account for such a statement!
It’s getting difficult to find the right place to reply because I am getting so many in my e-mail! Anyway, “seas” said, “And contra Glenn, gay relationships are wonderfully beneficial: those in the relationships are fulfilled; I’m happy they’re happy, I get to enjoy the extra warmth they give off, their open-heartedness. (On good days, obviously). Loves and friendships are the absolute glue of society, they’re the *first* good.”
DUH, since when does one’s personal feelings dictate what is beneficial for society? Homosexuality, like all sexual immorality, is detrimental to society as a whole, as any study of sociology and history would demonstrate.
Might I suggest some perusal of some factual data about problems with homosexual behavior, and the fact that one can leave that sin behind?
http://ltwinternational.org/main/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=369&Itemid=54
http://ltwinternational.org/main/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=368&Itemid=54
And a real kicker comparing the lifestyles of gay couples to married heterosexual couples:
http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=IS04C02
Or how about this study showing the decline of nations which were overtaken by sexual immorality, with homosexuality being a major problem:
http://www.ctm.org/arti/hathdon.html
That should give enough reading for a while!
Also see — THE BOOKS WERE A FRONT FOR THE PORN The Truth About the Homosexual Rights Movement — http://www.massresistance.org/docs/articles/new_oxford.html
I’m less interested in the debate of straight vs. homosexual marriage than I am in your misappropriation of the logical fallacy of “begging the question.”
Your entire argument is based on the premise that a union between man and woman is “real” marriage, and take this as a given. When the entire debate is, “what IS a real marriage after all?” Now THAT, my friend, is begging the question.
The argument gets even more interesting…
What you describe is more accurately represented as, “To have a truly Christian view of marriage, you must share the same definition, which is that it is a union between man and woman.”
The mistake you make is in extending it… the next round of begging the question comes when you extend “Christian view” to equal “real view,” which discounts any other possible viewpoint.
I imagine that you’re using the word “real” because you have utter faith in the word of God as represented in the Bible and preached by his servants on Earth. But this is begging the question, too! Faith is not evidence, it is faith, which is what is beautiful about it. It doesn’t NEED to have evidence. But on the other side of that very same coin, you can’t use lack of evidence as evidence, or you are begging the question. “God exists because the Bible says so,” is a very classic example of begging the question because it translates as “God exists because God says so.”
So, to extend your whole argument out:
Gay marriage is not real; this is because the only real marriage is Christian marriage; Christian marriage is between man and woman; marriage between man and woman is the only real marriage.
Now THAT’s a scary amount of begging the question.
Nothing against your viewpoint, but if you’re going to use logical fallacies as part of your argument, you’d best make sure you’re not guilty of misusing them yourself.
Hi Greg,
Thanks for visiting and commenting.
No, you are mistaken. There wasn’t a word called “marriage” thousands of years ago about which society said, “We’ve got this word, now let’s debate for a few thousand years what it means.”
What really happened is that there was a relationship between a man and a woman that can and did produce children to create families. It started with Adam and Eve, whether you like it or not. A term to describe these male / females unions was created. It was called “marriage.”
For extreme Liberals in the West to come along and pretend that it was a fluid term all along is the ultimate in question begging. If you position was correct then oxymoronic “same sex marriage” would have been considered legitimate all along and those disagreeing with it would have started the debate to “redefine it.” We both know that is without evidence.
To add to your fallacies, you make up the “Christian view is conflated with real view” bit. Wrong again.
You misunderstand biblical faith. It is placing your trust in evidence. Have you ever studied the book of Acts, for example? Go read the thirteen presentations of the Gospel contained there and ask whether the message was “have blind faith” or “here is evidence, trust in that.”
Faith in opposition to evidence isn’t faith, it is stupid. Have all the “faith” you like that there is no God, but when you face him for eternity your “faith” will mean less than nothing.
Speaking of logical fallacies, that is a straw man argument. I’ve written over 1,000 posts here. Please find one where I made that claim. I’ll wait here
.
No, you’ve come and created a rather sizable straw man argument. Please feel free to hang out and try again, but you’ll need to take more care to understand what was actually said rather than advancing your stereotypes and preconceptions. Otherwise, it wastes a lot of time.
You make it too easy, Neil.
There wasn’t even an English language as we know it thousands of years ago.
Be that as it may, the word “marriage” is universally considered to be a cross-cultural one. You can have Hindu marriages, Christian Marriages, and marriages by a Justice of the Peace. The Justice of the Peace does not have authority or willingness to create a bond sanctified by religion, but nonetheless the bond they form is called a “marriage.” There’s no debate that’s been raging for a thousand years, Neil. There’s just the definition of marriage. Where you’re leading yourself astray is the assumption that “the definition as presented by the Bible is the only true definition,” which begs the question.
Oh, so that’s what “REALLY” happened, eh? Where’s your evidence? This whole paragraph is begging the question, which is all I’m trying to show you.
Tell you what… you’ve challenged me to go through your 1000 posts… my challenge to you is to find evidence that the scripture is historical document. You can’t and you know it, or debates like this wouldn’t even happen…surely you DO know this, right?
I don’t need to look through 1,000 posts. It’s in this very post, or more accurately, in the comment thread. Worse yet, it’s in your very response!:
“What really happened..etc..is that it started with Adam and Eve.” This statement = “The Bible is fact” which = either “The Bible is fact because God says so” (there being no other evidence besides the Bible itself, which to use as evidence begs the question) or “The Bible is fact because I believe it” (belief is not evidence) or “The Bible is fact because I say so” (just stupid) or “The Bible is fact because I say so and millions agree” (ad populem).
I didn’t present a straw man. For you to claim it’s a straw man without explaining why it’s a straw man is to throw out a red herring. Sorry, but red herrings don’t cut it in logic.
Actually, that’s exactly the definition of faith. Belief without evidence. The vast majority of Christians have this kind of faith, and I’m sure you’re not calling them or yourself stupid. Any attempt at showing your “evidence” will inevitably only result in more “Begging the Question”.
I don’t mind wasting my own time… and it’s up to you to decide if it’s a waste of time to reply back again (you’re welcome not to!) or to consider your own words a little more objectively. It would be a big step for you to say, “Yeah, that might have been begging the question… maybe next time I should share it as an opinion and perspective rather than pass it off as fact.”
You clearly have no understanding of the fallacy of begging the question. All I’m saying is that until you learn, you’d best not use it.
D’oh. If you could fix my messed up blockquote before approving, that’d be great.
I think it is fixed . . .
Greg, grandstanding is bad. Grandstanding when you are horribly mistaken is really bad. I encourage you to cool it.
Straw man. Never made that claim.
Yes, and they all involved a man and a woman.
Another straw man. You can’t find anywhere I’ve made that claim. You just visit from stereotype land with it.
Go through the posts and quit making things up, or go to your blog for your fantasy land comments.
You already conceded my point about the historicity of real marriage.
Debates can happen even when one side is being ridiculous.
Now you are demonstrating that you aren’t even reading my comments, just as your original comment made it clear that you didn’t read the post well. Whether many Christians foolishly claim to have that kind of faith or not does not change what the Bible says. Come back after you read the Book of Acts (I won’t make you read the whole Bible, though you should) then prove me wrong regarding what kind of faith it demonstrates.
Thanks, Mr. Logical Fallacy person, but I know the definition, I elaborated on it in the post and I used it correctly. You are the one who doesn’t understand it and who piles straw men on top of it.
Come back when you are prepared to read what people actually write and not what your prejudices and bigotry make you think they wrote.
Wow, Neil, that’s a doozy. It would be fruitless to point out an ever-cascading round of fallacies (mainly red herrings and ad hominems) as well as arguing why what you identified as “straw men” or “ridiculous” statements are not.
The fact that you have so much vitriol is a bit surprising, though. Even my comment “You make it too easy” was meant in good fun and in the spirit of lively debate. It’s unfortunate that through either my fault or yours (who can say? It’s all interpretation!) there was negativity generated by it.
You do NOT use “begging the question” correctly. But thank the heavens that you use it better than people who use it to mean “which raises the question.” That much I applaud you for. It’s too bad you took my willingness to discuss the finer points of logic as something more… there was no agenda about either my or your opinion until you made it so.
I’ll go back to “fantasy land” now… apparently secular views are not welcomed here.
For the record, I DID read the post, and I responded directly to your words. I didn’t need to read your other 1000 posts (I see you use this as a deflection tactic often) because YOUR words in THIS very post were enough for the points at hand.
I do not have prejudices or bigotry. My wife is Catholic, and I am an admittedly pretty poor example of a Protestant (more of an agnostic, in truth), but I have read the Bible, or at least much of it. Far more than most other “Christians” I know. If you think that trying to show you why you’re using “begging the question” incorrectly reveals some sort of prejudiced, bigoted agenda, you have a long ways to go in understanding and communicating with people of differing perspectives. You took “Er, that’s not begging the question” into the territory of “Greg seems to believe same-sex unions are marriages” and got overly concerned with that. Which wasn’t the argument at hand.
Thanks for your time… it was relatively enjoyable and I appreciate your “wasting” a little bit of it on little ol’ me.
(replying a bit higher to avoid nested comment wackiness)
No, LCB, my argument was, “Sorry, Neil, but that was not an accurate example of begging the question, and then you went on to beg the question.” To TELL me what my definition of marriage is would be to put words in my mouth. And besides that, it wasn’t the subject of the particular sub-conversation I had started. I was only talking about “Begging the Question.” After all, the title of the post is “Question Begging 101″.
Speaking of straw men…!
It doesn’t matter to me what “your” definition is. The issue is the legal definition and how the question begging gay agenda is trying to say it was there all along. Sure.
Greg, sorry if I was harsh with you. But when people don’t get 2+2 kind of logic I get impatient quickly. Life’s too short. Consider my post a (p)rebuttal to all your arguments about question begging. It is all there, carefully laid out. If you don’t get it then I’m incapable of explaining it any better than that. You’ll just have to go off “knowing” how right you are.
You took things in other directions and I addressed those points. I particularly encourage you to consider how Christians making incorrect statements about Christianity doesn’t disprove it any more dumb comments by atheists prove that there is a God.
I was just listening to a Podcast this morning (White Horse Inn) that had audio clips of Christians being interviewed about why they believe Christianity to be true. It was almost all lame comments about feelngs and such that anyone of any religion (or non-religion) could use. None of them were equipped to demonstrate the facts of the resurrection and the evidence for the faith. Sad.
Greg,
May I suggest you pick up a copy of “I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be An Atheist,” by Norman Geisler and Frank Turek? I think they do a good job using philosophy and logic to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that God indeed exists, that the Biblical documents are historical and that the Christian faith is the only true faith.
Of course that’s only if you are truly interesting in solid, logical arguments for God and the Christian faith.
I’m always interested in that kind of thing. I’ll see if I can find a copy. “Beyond a reasonable doubt” might be a stretch depending on your own particular convictions and experiences, but still I’d be interested to read.
For the record, I’m a baptized Christian (United Church), and I have agnostic–not athiest–leanings. Being sceptical doesn’t mean you’re on the other side of the fence. It means you’re not willing to let yourself get shoved over one way or the other.
Side-note; I wonder if WordPress or some sort of a plugin have a way to fix the nested comments. Kudos to Neilf for having a blog popular enough that comments get nested so many levels deep, but man it gets hard to write (reply form is in limbo) and read (comments get narrow)!
Hi Greg — the nested comment thing is definitely a love / hate thing. Mostly love. I’m not sure how it works on the end of readers, but for me I usually just read comments via email and respond as well. The drawback is that sometimes I can’t remember what the previous comments were.
If it is getting too narrow feel free to start a new thread at the bottom.
To recap, if someone wants to put forth reasons why the definition of marriage should be changed, then I’d respect their approach (even though I think the core idea is absurd).
But if anyone is too ignorant or too dishonest to concede that the historic definition of marriage is between a man and a woman then they don’t belong at this blog.
Greg’s argument is essentially this: The traditional definition of marriage has never really been the definition of marriage.
Am I understanding you Greg? I can’t take that argument seriously at all.
fyi — I’ve moderated Greg and probably won’t post any of his comments. I’m too busy these days to waste time with ignorance and/or dishonesty.
But I do think you characterized his view accurately, which is why the original post is accurate.
Your problem is that you’re picking one definition of marriage (of course, the one that makes you right 100% of the time), there are many definitions of marriage, some simply mean a partnership between two business associates, or businesses. One of them is just the union of two people (people, not sexes or religions, just people). You all have access to a dictionary, and if you don’t, you do have access to the internet which houses many dictionaries. You could have easily looked it up before starting this argument, but since that would have weakened your argument you didn’t. Nobody’s asking your religion to look at the two types of marriage as the same (we wouldn’t expect you to look at the definition that only applies to card games, between two playing cards as the same as your ‘religious’ marriage either, that’s just absurd).
Marriage, comes from the old french Marier, ‘To Marry’. Look up the word ‘Marry’ and there goes your entire support system for this particular defense against ‘gay marriage’. Marry is clearly defined “to join in marriage according to law or custom”. All we are trying to do is change the law (or custom) which are malleable entities.
Nobody is trying to encroach on anything that you do in or out of your church. Nobody is trying to force religious pastors/priests/clergy to perform these unions.
All we want is the same rights that everybody else has. We want to be able to visit our loved ones in the hospital when they are dying. We want to be able to not go into debt paying for multiple health insurance premiums.
I don’t care if anybody responds to this, or even if the original poster sees it. I won’t be back to argue my point. Because my point isn’t opinion as his is. My point is based in fact, the facts of what words actually mean. He is biased because of his religion, which is understandable. History is filled with people who made bad decisions because they got caught up in religious fervor. I don’t blame him for how he feels about gays and lesbians, this is still (no matter what anybody says) a free country and opinion is still allowed. And yes, of course I am biased because of my sexuality and the sexualities of my family and friends. The difference is simply that I took a few minutes to research what the word was that he was originally trying to define.
I’m sorry Neil, I don’t know you personally, so I don’t begin to know anything about who you are, or why it is that you write blogs like this. But on this particular ‘fact’ you are wrong.
I hope you find peace some day.
Hi Sam,
You are off to a bad start in pretending that the definition of marriage was fuzzy. If a man said he was married, one would never have responded, “Be more specific — are you married to a man, a woman, a business associate, or something else?!” You are proving my point with word games like that.
Ah, the religion gambit. No surprise there. If you want to know what the one true God says about homosexual behavior (and you should want to know) then I’ll be glad to share that with you. But I don’t need religion to point out the obvious: Marriage is the union of a man and a woman and by nature and design male/female couples produce the next generation. That is the only reason the gov’t gets involved.
No one is stopping your unions. Read any of my nearly 2,000 posts and find one place where I ask the gov’t to keep you from socializing with whomever you like.
And the fact is that many are indeed trying to force churches to perform these unions.
No, your movement wants the right to an oxymoron (“same sex union of a man and a woman”), to have homosexual behavior taught as normal and positive to kindergartners on up (that is some sick stuff, people) and to silence the church.
I support your rights to visit loved ones in the hospital. But that can be accomplished without changing the definition of marriage.
Another lie, right out of the playbook. Cheers.
Straw man argument. No one is trying to silence your free speech. I find it pathetic that you resort to such reasoning.
I’m sure you do. You’ll be glad to know I found it already in Jesus Christ. I seriously encourage you to do the same. Shaking your fist at God 24×7x365 via the homosexual lifestyle is a lousy way to live life and a sure path to eternal damnation.
I know what you wrote, but the “socially” part was meaningless. Just because I hold the view that their behavior is sinful doesn’t mean I’m stopping them from having relationships. Hey, a “few” people out their don’t like Christians (probably 95% of the MSM) and 90% of the MSM are pro-choice. I could boo-hoo about how they are obstructing my life or I can go out and address their bad arguments and dogma.
Apparently Seas is being immoral and harassing you because he doesn’t approve of what you do.
Mizclark, there are so many things to disagree with there but I’ll just pick a couple.
There aren’t billions of unborn children murdered daily, it is more like 3,500 per day in the U.S. and perhaps a hundred thousand plus in the world.
I’ve yet to see my secular arguments against “same sex marriage” refuted.
“Gay marriage” isn’t a sin, it is an oxymoron. Gay behavior is a sin.
Please read the over 1,000 posts on my blog and find one where I say the gov’t should regulate their behavior. I’ll wait here.
You claim to err on the side of love doesn’t prove anything. If this behavior is sinful then the loving thing to do is teach the truth. To encourage someone in sinful behavior would be hateful.
“Better to marry than burn” doesn’t apply. Paul was saying that marriage would help avoid sin. In this case you are just putting a gov’t stamp of approval on sin, which doesn’t accomplish anything.