People are less likely to hijack in IMHO than Great Debates with their opinion when the debate is not about their opinion its about what motivates the other side? Or maybe you just are making some dumbass personal attack with no relevance?
I vote for the latter.
Well there’s also the tendency to to be convinced that one’s side is the most rational, and that if the other side were rational then the individual in question would of course hold the rational opinion as they of course are a ‘rational’ person. IE, people have an ego thing where they attach importance to rationality and think only the winning side is rational.
I agree that it’s an accurate assessment, it just isn’t totally precise. These people genuinely believe that the culture we live in is founded on Christian moral principles. So therefore even though it is not about favoring on sect over another that it is building on a foundation of those values. The devil is in the details as they say.
Agreed. But it’s tough to slog through, “It’s only bigotry.”, and well people who have already decided one way before hearing the argument and then nitpick particular details and then call any argument that recognizes multiple factors, “shifting the goalposts”.
The “I wish I was ruling a theocracy” argument is a common straw man. Wishing to base our legal system off of Christian moral principles is not the same as wanting a theocracy. (Which isn’t to say that many people don’t pine for a theocracy ruled by the religious sect of their preference.)
There are two different subtle distinctions at play here. This can be put into two questions.
So my argument isn’t fallacious because it addresses 1 and not 2. 1 is certainly a YES, something will be lost. 2 for 99.9% of posters to the SDMB is an easy NO.
What upset me was that I saw a lot of people strutting around and showcasing number 2 when I saw the thread as being about number 1. Number 2 IMO is banal and trite. We know how the majority of people on the Dope will respond to number 2, so answering it over and over again, and requesting for the only person addressing number 1 (me) to challenge number 2 is an exercise in triviality. Yes, it’s obvious what your answer to number 2 is and no I don’t think that any of the arguments regarding number 1 will change your position on number 2. So the only value in even addressing number 2 is to state your position on it and move on to a discussion of number 1. That the vast majority of discussion in this thread was about number 2 was vexing to me.
boytyperanma and mswas, take your personal bickering out of this thread.
[ /Moderating ]
Sure no problem, it’s the first time I was even aware of his existance.
Sure, there’s a tendency towards that - though I seriously think that in this thread the bar is a lot lower. Honestly at this point my expectations are so lowered that I’ll be impressed by any valid and sound argument that I can even imagine a person could accept as a reason to override the civil rights of others without dehumanizing them first. Even a christian person.
Heck, I’d be impressed if somebody just came out and said, “It’s for peoples own good that they stop being gay - so it’s a moral good to enforce that.” Assuming they can figure out a way to imply that banning gay marriage would make people less gay, which it won’t. And that they could prove their religion is correct, which I admit might be tough. But if they could make those connections, then I’d be much more impressed with that argument than any others seen here, since all of these crumble when you shine the light of reason on them like a frikking albino vampire.
So it’s an argument from delusion, then? 'Cause the culture we live in was founded at least partially on the principles enshrined in the constitution, which ain’t the bible, and which is the foundation for the stronger half of the arguments for SSM.
Well, don’t look at me.
“I wish I was ruling a theocracy” is, I feel, an accurate statement of the motive of everyone who wishes to codify their theological beliefs into law. They may not have articulated the idea clearly to themselves, but when you want to shove your morals down everyone’s throats, you are indeed wishing that you were running a theocracy over everyone. So, not a strawman - it’s instead one of those real arguments that people don’t like to admit is their justification 'cause they know it would not be received well.
And I disagree that 1 is certainly yes, if we restrict the “anything be[ing] lost” to things that they had in the first place (and if we’re still talking about culture). Succinctly, the notion that the states is currently a Christian country is a really, really flimsy delusion. It’s simply not true. And you can’t lose what you don’t already have. At best you could argue this at a regional level, if your little town has managed to be a functional theocracy and drive out all opposing religions through peer pressure or whatever. Which may actually be the case in places. But at a countrywide level, the thing they’re imagining losing is a pipe dream.
And no, I don’t care if 99% of christans think that america is a christian nation in any meaningful (much less legal) sense. It’s demonstrably not, and thats that. (If it was, we wouldn’t even be having this debate! It would have been killed in the womb Taliban-style.)
Now, there are several things that would be lost if SSM was widely legalized. The delusion that the US is a christan client state. The feeling that god is winning the battle against sin. Things like that. But none of those are the supposed christian culture itself, which cannot be lost, because we don’t have it to begin with. (And very few of these losses will be accepted as meaningful “harm” by anyone when balanced against the harm of denying marriages - assuming you don’t dismiss that harm prima facie.)
I suspect that you have conflated two separate ideas–and, to greater or lesser degree, you have missed the point on each.
First, note that mswas never put forth the argument that the U.S. is a “Christian nation.” He specifically said that some number of people believe that the culture is founded on Christian moral principles. That is not a matter of being deluded, simply confusing cultural themes with moral principles. In point of fact, the U.S. was created in a Christian culture. The culture has always embraced monogamy and rejected polgamy. It has strong traditions rooted in the Protestant work ethic. The various “Great Awakenings” that preceded and followed the War for Indepedence played a serious role in laying the foundations for the our independence and then led to the organization of Abolition movement. While SOCAS defenders rightly point to the words and actions of Madison and Jefferson, the country was also shaped by Adams and established churches at the state level and education that incorporated religious instruction in the public schools. You are correct that Madison was, (thankfully), able to get the beginnings of SOCAS into the Constitution and that he and Jefferson made it a growing policy in Law. However, to deny that the culture has been shaped to a very great extent by Christian thought is simply to ignore reality.
I think that currently, any claim to being a “Christian nation” can only be accepted in the vague sense that some large majority professes to adhere to different Christian denominations. Calls from the far Religious Right to impose their brand of theocracy on the country are both futile and wrong. However, if we are discussing the origins of the beliefs of people regarding various cultural situations, pointing to the Christian culture as the source of their rationale is not an error. We can argue against that perception on a number of fronts, but dismissing their rationale as “delusional” simply indicates a lack of awareness of our history.
I’m not entirely sure how accurate this is. It’s my understanding that marriage is anathema to a continued sex life, well, at least with one’s spouse. So, I think the fundies are approaching the subject from the wrong angle. Should they really want to extirpate such a heinous practice, then legalizing gay marriage would surely serve that end. =P
At the reduction of all of the pomp remains the case that worst thing which could happen should same sex marriage be legalized is that gays might show that they are at least no worse at it than are the straight people. Indeed, all of the apologetics on how legalized same sex marriage will serve as the ruination of straight marriage is demonstrably false inasmuch as same sex marriage is legal both in and out of the United States. Straight marriage seems no worse off for it.
Nor have I been able to find a single divorce pleading for which the cited reason is “gay marriage”. I should be most interested to read such a filing should anyone have occasion to procure one. Of course, one wonders about how solvent these straight marriages actually are if they’re purportedly so easily molested by what the status is of anyone else’s marriage.
A marriage is a union between, or among (if that’s your thing), those who undertake its burdens. It’s a contract not informed by what others do, or don’t do. If one’s marriage is necessarily prey to the dictates of what other couples may elect to do, then I would suggest that said marriage wasn’t undertaken for the proper reasons to start with. Alas, what I think of the proper reasons for them to be married is ultimately immaterial because these people are free, as well they should be, to undertake a marriage for the reasons best suited to their own devising.
There has been much made of the so-called history of marriage, such that it’s been exclusively consigned to a union between one man and one woman. This is decidedly counterfactual. As has been pointed out, there are places wherein bigamy is legal. The world doesn’t seem any worse for the wear. One such place was in the not so long ago and far away of the United States. Mormons practiced this for a considerable time without any specific law interfering with it. Of course, eventually it was done away with, but that doesn’t imply that at one time it wasn’t legal. It simply won’t do to invoke some trite passages of the bible inasmuch as Mormons are as much a Christian sect as any of the others.
Even if that were not the case, though, it’s worth noting that it’s irrelevant. What a religion, some religions, or all religions might counsel as the way things ought to be has no bearing on the status of our laws. Our laws aren’t dictated by Christian tenets, Islamic ones, or any other.
Then, of course, comes the argument that this is an emotional issue. I’ll consider that to be a profound statement of the obvious. That the issue involves strong emotion doesn’t somehow imply that the sum total of human reasoning and intellect should somehow be held in abeyance during the pendency of the issue. Indeed, the law should be reason free from passion (thank you, Aristotle). It simply doesn’t do to claim that because someone’s particularly narrow interpretation of a religion might be offended, the issue should be resolved in deference to said view. This belies the entire notion of reasoning.
Regards,
Johnathan
Please list those things that will be lost.
In responding to mswas’s argument I’ve been having a bit of trouble addressing a single reply to the seemingly disparate categories of people his argument purports to speak for. Specifically I can think of at least three different ways of arguing that american culture = a specific fixed standard of culture, which (as I’ve been arguing) is a necessary equation to make in order to establish the fixed standard of “goodness” needed to make the “culture harm” argument. Without that equation there is no harm - thre is only change.
The first position a “american culture = religious denomination of choice’s culture” believer could be arguing from would be the “america is currently a bastion of christian morality” approach. My response to that is to glance around and say “You’ve got to be kidding.” Of course, I have lived in Vegas, so my perceptions might be skewed - but it’s not like divorce and selfishness and abandonment of the poor are unheard of elsewhere, either. Hence my conclusion that persons who are holding this opinion are viewing the world through, shall we say, heavily filtered glasses, hence the ‘argument from delusion’ comment.
The second approach a person could make is “america was founded as a totally christian nation” They can then point out neat things like disenfranchisement of women and slavery which are all neatly consistent with the bible to support their claim. To these people I have two responses: “It wasn’t totally a christian nation”, leading me to conclude that their glasses are also pretty filtered if they’re arguing otherwise; my second response on the other hand is “Hasn’t that ship already sailed?” If the country’s culture’s christian chararacter would be damaged by a smattering of gay marriages occuring, wouldn’t it have been shattered when divorces became legal and widespread? Not to mention when the law started erecting a wall between church and state. Talk about a death knell!
The third position is a little different, in that it’s not specifically attached to religion at all: it’s “ANY change is bad”. That is, that the current culture, whatever it is, is defined as being better than any culture that’s different from it. Conservativism in the classic sense, that is. To these people I can only say, “That’s an interesting opinion, but I don’t think you actually hold it.” Most people agree that it’s possible for the culture to be improved. If there was somebody that really, seriously didn’t, though, I would be forced to concede that by their standards, in their opinion, actual harm would be being done if gay marriage was legalised. Or if murders became less common. Fortunately for me I don’t really think there’s anyone like that - and if they are imperfectly consistent about which things may change and which must stay the same, then the argument that the culture is receiving actual harm dissolves into an argument over which changes count as harm, bringing us back to the question of the OP.
If the argument was “there are a lot of christians in this culture and their opinions have influenced things (though less so in recent decades)”, then I wouldn’t have a leg to stand on here. But that also wouldn’t be sufficient to stand the culture up as equal to a specific ideal against which “harm” could be measured. The thing to note is that the argument mswas has been making requires a high degree of alignment between the culture as it currently is, and whichever religious system the comparer is using to measure the ‘harm’. If the current culture isn’t aligned with the religion, then it’s not sensible to claim it has been ‘harmed’ by moving from a state of failing to meet the standard to another state of failing to meet the standard, any more than making a ford pickup less aerodynamic makes it a worse airplane.
Persons making mswas’s argument have to establish that they have a christian culture before they can claim to be losing it with this, minor, change to it. I’m sure a lot of them think that the culture is, indeed, crafted in their image. I propose that they’re wildly incorrect…which means that the argument that harm is actually occuring can be responded to with a succinct “Harm to the culture is only happening in their imagination and is not actually happening in objective reality”.
My posts are my cite.
begbert2 You are setting up a strawman culture that can never be approximated. They have had cultural aspects they hold dear that are being stripped away. Being unable to live up to your strawman ideal of a Christian culture is neither here nor there.
Form what I’ve seen, you may as well be decrying the loss of an imaginary emu farm, or something else that only exists in the minds of the claimants.
Yeah I know, but that sort of stupid nonsense is beneath you even having bothered to type. We know you hate Christians and the things that they value but your opinion on the matter is not relevant. Whether or not you care is unimportant and doesn’t address the OP. You got what I had to say long ago, you acknowledged it and showed that you had complete comprehension. So really you are just stroking your gestalt by saying that the abstracts other people value are purely imaginary whereas the abstracts you value are really real. I get it, it’s all about you. I understand, the things you don’t care about aren’t real.
There are only a couple of people who I think are even honest with these sorts of comments anymore, and you without a doubt are not one of them. You get it, you’re just trying to get a rise.
Ignore my last couple of posts. This thread is way past its freshness date and I am in a really bad mood, so I have nothing non-snark to say anymore.
Well, if you prefer a more dignified illustration, replace the emu farm with anything you like, but it won’t be any less imaginary.
What concepts do you think I am valuing that are not real? Individual freedom? Equal treatment before the law? These can be ethereal concepts, of course, but there are measurable real-world effects when they are blocked. In contrast, religious beliefs can be pretty freely modified and the only effect is replacing one arbitrary concept with another.
You’re free to hold whatever beliefs you want and value whatever you wish, of course, and I’ll make no effort to change this, but as a reason to block gay marriage, it fails by any reasonable standard.
You’ve made a lot of posts here - and lots of your arguments have been shot down. Presuming you wish to defend this further, it might help to make a brief summation of any arguments you feel still have legs under them.
I may be supposed to ignore this - but let me make a brief reply: what is a strawman called when you invent something and then start defending it, rather than shooting it down? The argument that “harm” is happening to a “culture” presupposes that the culture is adhering to a specific standard against which harm can be measured. This adherence you presuppose is invented. And it’s no strawman to point out that the truck is no airplane.
And what, precisely, are the “cultural aspects” that they “hold dear” that are being “stripped away”? The ability to be hetero-married isn’t. The ability to have a church wedding isn’t. The ability to only give church weddings to non-gays isn’t. Making gays not exist isn’t being ‘stripped away’ either, because they do regardless…
??? I asked for you to tell me what will be lost by those that appose SSM, not for a cite. If you have listed it in one of the 15 pages here, please point me to it.
Again, what will it cost you when I marry the man of my dreams?
I see. He allegedly hates Christians, therefore his ideas on civil gay marriage (which doesn’t necessarily involve any Christians) is moot? Hardly.
Many people hate Christians. Even some Christians hate Christians. This is hardly dispositive. Moreover, it’s conflates the issue by equating a dislike of policy with a hatred for an entire class of people who might support it.
I don’t like fiscal irresponsibility, but that doesn’t mean I hate republicans for having willingly driven us so far into debt. I think Christianity is a sham, but that, in and of itself, is no reason to hate any particular Christian. Same with Islam, Buddhism and so forth.
You seem incapable of distinguishing between an idea and the person who may happen to hold it. This is one of the surest signs of both intellectual dishonesty and emotional immaturity.
If this is true, it’s surely ironic, since mswas has repeatedly stated that he is merely playing devil’s advocate on this issue.
Actually it’s a sign that I’ve had similar discussions with the same people over many topics where there is a common theme that I have discovered. But of course you can quote your Freshman Rhetoric textbook at me if it makes you feel better.
If you can come up with a better reason why he says that something that is valuable to a great many other people is so inconsequential that it cannot be differentiated from non-existance, then please, enlighten me as to why such an argument is being made?