# Tradition
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tradition/723114
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [June 22, 2015, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tradition/723114 "2015-06-22T02:56:45Z")
**Posts on this page:** 14
**Page:** 4
### Author:  [@raindog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raindog)
#### Post date: [July 15, 2015, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tradition/723114/61 "2015-07-15T15:30:43Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#):
>
> My post read:
>
> However, what I meant to write was:
>
> Emphasis added. My point being that whether or not some kind of JudeoChristian god actually exists, contradictions within any particular worship system are not hard to find. If a particular faith was more direct, i.e. “this particular denomination puts hatred of homosexuality above all else, so there is no contradiction between that and the secondary dogmas of ‘love thy neighbor’ and such”, then perhaps flaws in its design would be harder to find.
>
> In any case, I look forward to religion’s steadily-diminishing importance in the West in my lifetime.
_Without regard to whether what I may believe on the matter_ (for I’m not taking a position on this; and it’s great that you gave us something to discuss) can you see that you’re witnessing to me?
I mean, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, either. But while it’s without a doubt subjectively true for you that homosexuality is okkeedokee and therefore anyone who espouses a different viewpoint \*\*must \*\*be motivated by a transparent hatred for fellow humans, it’s hardly objectively true.
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [July 15, 2015, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tradition/723114/62 "2015-07-15T15:40:38Z")
> [@raindog](#):
>
> _Without regard to whether what I may believe on the matter_ (for I’m not taking a position on this; and it’s great that you gave us something to discuss) can you see that you’re witnessing to me?
>
> I mean, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, either. But while it’s without a doubt subjectively true for you that homosexuality is okkeedokee and therefore anyone who espouses a different viewpoint \*\*must \*\*be motivated by a transparent hatred for fellow humans, it’s hardly objectively true.
Well, okay, it’s possible that that it’s not hatred of homosexuality _per se_ that motivates them but something softer like discomfort with homosexuality or revulsion for homosexuality or perhaps even a sincere and caring belief that homosexuals are hurting themselves. Whatever. They should learn to be indifferent to things that don’t concern them.
Maintaining traditions is fine if _you_ choose to do so for _yourself_. Insisting they be maintained for others who don’t want them is presumptuous and intrusive, so you better have a good reason and the anti-SSM crowd doesn’t.
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### Author:  [@raindog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raindog)
#### Post date: [July 15, 2015, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tradition/723114/63 "2015-07-15T15:59:29Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#):
>
> Well, okay, it’s possible that that it’s not hatred of homosexuality _per se_ that motivates them but something softer like discomfort with homosexuality or revulsion for homosexuality or perhaps even a sincere and caring belief that homosexuals are hurting themselves. Whatever. They should learn to be indifferent to things that don’t concern them.
>
> Maintaining traditions is fine if _you_ choose to do so for _yourself_. Insisting they be maintained for others who don’t want them is presumptuous and intrusive, so you better have a good reason and the anti-SSM crowd doesn’t.
I would agree with you in part—maybe large part.
This discussion quickly enters a church/state paradigm, and I think we hold off on that for a moment. (and where we’d likely find common ground)
They may actually be motivated by love, or at least some of them. (misguided as I’m sure you’d say, should you agree) I’m sure the anti SSM crowd has a variety of reasons for their views. Surely hatred is one. There is also the ick factor, or uncomfortableness factor.
But at least some see homosexuality as a disorder, and have no ick factor, nor hatred. They love God, and as they perceive him, see a prohibition on homosexuality as divinely directed in the bible. The emotion most likely felt in this type of Christian is compassion or feeling sorry for them.
It’s counterproductive to universally assign hatred to them as their motivation.
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [July 15, 2015, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tradition/723114/64 "2015-07-15T16:06:53Z")
> [@raindog](#):
>
> I would agree with you in part—maybe large part.
>
> This discussion quickly enters a church/state paradigm, and I think we hold off on that for a moment. (and where we’d likely find common ground)
>
> They may actually be motivated by love, or at least some of them. (misguided as I’m sure you’d say, should you agree) I’m sure the anti SSM crowd has a variety of reasons for their views. Surely hatred is one. There is also the ick factor, or uncomfortableness factor.
>
> But at least some see homosexuality as a disorder, and have no ick factor, nor hatred. They love God, and as they perceive him, see a prohibition on homosexuality as divinely directed in the bible. The emotion most likely felt in this type of Christian is compassion or feeling sorry for them.
>
> It’s counterproductive to universally assign hatred to them as their motivation.
Fine, I’ll recognize the possibility the motivation is not universally based in hatred. That still doesn’t make “tradition” a valid basis for supporting laws against SSM. Feel free to harbour whatever mix of hatred/love/ick/compassion/pity you like, privately, but if you voted for a state anti-SSM constitutional amendment in the past (and would do so again today were it an option) then you’re hurting your fellow citizens whether you admit it or not.
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### Author:  [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)
#### Post date: [July 15, 2015, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tradition/723114/65 "2015-07-15T16:17:40Z")
> [@Steven9001](#):
>
> My argument for “traditional marriage” isn’t about tradition. Marriage isn’t only about love. Its about procreation(creating a family). The government regulates marriage not because of love, but because it directly affects the population of citizens.
This distinction appears to be of immense importance to many opponents of gay marriage, but I have a simple solution. Anyone can get married, but all couples who marry _and_ procreate receive a special certificate, signed by the Government and suitable for framing, as official recognition for their service. They are further authorized to refer to themselves as “married-plus,” and will be annually honored on a newly created “Breeder’s Day,” which will be a bank holiday.
I’m hopeful that these changes will be sufficient to distinguish those who marry in order to beget offspring from those who enjoy the benefits of marriage without doing their duty as propagators of the human species.
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### Author:  [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)
#### Post date: [July 15, 2015, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tradition/723114/66 "2015-07-15T17:14:01Z")
For the record, I only signed up for the wedding presents and to get my (now) wife to stop complaining about how I had commitment problems.
The fondue pot is lovely.
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### Author:  [@pianodave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pianodave)
#### Post date: [July 16, 2015, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tradition/723114/67 "2015-07-16T00:47:00Z")
OP here.
Thanks for all your responses. I’m learning a lot!
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### Author:  [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)
#### Post date: [July 16, 2015, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tradition/723114/68 "2015-07-16T01:34:50Z")
My grandpa told me not to eat those pretty berries…something about seizures, respiratory failure, blah blah blah.
Fuck tradition, I said.
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### Author:  [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)
#### Post date: [July 16, 2015, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tradition/723114/69 "2015-07-16T01:39:03Z")
> [@Stringbean](#):
>
> My grandpa told me not to eat those pretty berries…something about seizures, respiratory failure, blah blah blah.
>
> Fuck tradition, I said.
My grandpa told me not to mix with the niggers. Something about God’s wrath and the resentment of inferior peoples…
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### Author:  [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)
#### Post date: [July 16, 2015, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tradition/723114/70 "2015-07-16T04:15:10Z")
If people consistently weighed all options evenly including stuff that worked in the past the amount of effort and thought required to get through the day would be immense. Traditional methods have a value due to them surviving long enough to be considered traditional. The burden of proof ought to be on the change.
Personally, I’d like to see the metric system adopted everywhere in the US. It’s a more rational system, imho. That said tradition has prevented it from doing so and that’s not necessarily a terrible thing even if it’s sub-optimal.
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### Author:  [@HumbleThinker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HumbleThinker)
#### Post date: [July 16, 2015, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tradition/723114/71 "2015-07-16T12:48:57Z")
> [@pianodave](#):
>
> Hi SD,
>
> I don’t understand why people use the tradition argument to prevent change, or even more simply, why people consider traditional things as somewhat better by virtue of having “stood the test of time.”
>
> I came to the realization that everything we might think of as tradition was once a risk taken away from the status quo of the time. We hide behind the concept of tradition and fail to understand the very things that were founded so long ago were themselves changes. The passage of time is the only thing that a tradition has going for it. It doesn’t speak to the inherent wrongness or rightness of said tradition. Even the word “tradition” etymologically only references the transmission of ideas through time.
>
> The Bible, that source for many “tradition” arguments, was written a long time ago. Who knows what arguments or debates might have taken place when deciding what beliefs the book should promote? Here I theorize that the Bible itself was written by men and not by a divine source. Even if we assume that the author(s) were unanimously in favor of a particular belief, it only became tradition when it was entered into this new paradigm. Before that, it was a bunch of people who decided to think the same way about something. We don’t know how they came to the conclusion, for example, that men having sex with men was a capital offense. There just happened to be a bunch of people afraid of or disgusted with that act who found they shared the same fear and disgust between them.
>
> Those who believe that a divine power did write the Bible–well, I suppose that makes the tradition argument more an argument that the Divine Word should be taken as fact, although that kind of paints you into a corner, because if one part of it should be taken as fact, then every other statement in the Torah/Bible should be as well, and logically that might be difficult to back up.
>
> But I digress. My point was meant to be about tradition in general.
> I’d posit that those who espouse tradition as a reason for preserving a certain belief or law demonstrate their own close-mindedness much more than the unshakable faith or purity of belief they want to portray.
>
> Thoughts would be appreciated.
People generally like to feel a continuity between their cultural past and their cultural present and also have some influence on their cultural future. While I agree that tradition should not be an automatic winner of a conversation (“this is the way it’s be done, therefore it won’t be changed”), I think it is important to keep it in mind.
Meditating on our traditions can be a good inhibitor to hasty changes that would not be beneficial, but, as we both agree, it can also hold us back if we become too entrenched in traditions.
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### Author:  [@HumbleThinker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HumbleThinker)
#### Post date: [July 16, 2015, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tradition/723114/72 "2015-07-16T12:54:03Z")
> [@Nava](#):
>
> See, me, I like traditions.
>
> They’re so much easier to change than laws, you see. Someone does something new and you like it? A new tradition is born. The way we’ve been doing things doesn’t work so well any more? We stop doing it. Don’t need nobody to do no paperwork. Much, much more practical.
>
> Now, when people use “tradition” to mean “it’s the way _I_ like it”, that’s a different problem. It’s a problem with misusing language, not with tradition.
> **pianodave** - in a religious context, “tradition” refers precisely to those things which are not in the Bible (or Quran) but in later writings, or which are customary. So some of the things you find offensive about “tradition” appear to come from confusing “tradition” with “Bible-thumping” (a practice most common from those groups which don’t believe in religious tradition).
Good point. Just as easily as the old traditions were made, we can make new ones for future generations to either follow or improve upon. If traditions are not beneficial to a later version of that society, even to the point of precipitating the degradation of that society, it would be quite illogical to keep following them. Traditions are made for the purpose of maintaining and improving society, so it would be rather odd to hold one which was doing the exact opposite.
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### Author:  [@HumbleThinker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HumbleThinker)
#### Post date: [July 16, 2015, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tradition/723114/73 "2015-07-16T12:59:21Z")
> [@puddleglum](#):
>
> Imagine you had to have surgery and the surgeon offered two options. One has been tried thousands of times and has worked, the other is something the surgeon thinks will work but has never been tried before. Would you go with the traditional method or the new one? Most people would probably go with the traditional method instead of being the guinea pig for the new method. Since you only get one life, it usually makes sense to follow tradition since we know it works and not risk using the new and unproved.
But let’s look at it another way. Certain traditions tend to change in extraordinary times where the traditions are getting in the way. So if for this particular patient, tried and true surgery A only has a 15% chance of success but untested surgery B has a theoretical chance of success of 85% if the surgeon does everything right, it would be wise to go with surgery B despite the understandable fear of the risk of something new.
Put another way, if surgery A has a 100% success rate but has a poorer resulting quality of life as compared to untested surgery B which only has a 50% chance at best of working, surgery B would look more attractive to a person who wants a better quality of life after the surgery. And if this surgery works and is repeated, its success rate would increase, thus resulting in a new surgery that both has a high success rate and results in a higher quality of life.
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [July 17, 2015, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tradition/723114/74 "2015-07-17T01:43:44Z")
In the case of SSM, though, it only occurred to most people to start defending the tradition when told lies that the tradition was in jeopardy.
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