Gay Marriage at Cedar Point: Please help us!

Bakeman31092 said:

Because they are imaginary.

Even if they are (which clearly I would disagree with), so? Is logic/philosophy/ethics any less imaginary?

I didn't really have a question I guess, I just didn't understand your position at first. You cleared it up for me.

Why aren't religious reasons valid bases for moral conclusions?

Because you have to bring your own sense of morality to know what parts of your holy text make sense and what parts don't. If religion is the basis for morality, then there could be no argument against anything the Bible dictates, even though we clearly know slavery and child abuse to be wrong.

In a secular society, religious reasons can, I think, be the basis for moral conclusions, so long as those reasons can be supported objectively outside of religion.

In that case religion isn't the basis. It just gets it right by coincidence.

djDaemon said:
In a secular society, religious reasons can, I think, be the basis for moral conclusions, so long as those reasons can be supported objectively outside of religion.

Is your claim that a citizen should only vote or call for legislation that is based on a philosophical or rational notion or morality, but not solely on a religious one? That is both wholly impractical and dehumanizing.

ApolloAndy said:

But there's enough gray area in there for me to not immediately dismiss the anti-gay marriage position as wholly different from the anti-sex with minors position.

We agree on most everything, so it's kind of somewhat refreshing to have this come up. Sex with minors involves (typically, maybe just frequently?) someone in a position of authority taking advantage of someone who perceives that they are not on equal footing in the "relationship." That's why the Feds just had a major crackdown on human trafficking in this country. People are being taken advantage of...

The anti-gay marriage position...from MY perspective...means that gay Americans might be permitted some of the same rights as their heterosexual peers. Nomenclature of "marriage vs. civil unions" notwithstanding, my issue is solely with the concept of "separate yet not quite equal." That, to me, is un-American.

Logic/philosophy/ethics are all human activities, or human efforts to find the answers. Religion is the belief that a supernatural deity has already provided the answers. Therefore, the actual existence of this deity is paramount to the issue of whether or not we should consider logic/philosophy/ethics to be the only valid path to answering moral questions.

Is your claim that a citizen should only vote or call for legislation that is based on a philosophical or rational notion or morality, but not solely on a religious one?

Absolutely.

That is both wholly impractical and dehumanizing.

Impractical, probably. Dehumanizing, how?

Bakeman31092 said:

Because you have to bring your own sense of morality to know what parts of your holy text make sense and what parts don't. If religion is the basis for morality, then there could be no argument against anything the Bible dictates, even though we clearly know slavery and child abuse to be wrong.

Some people go there, but I think they're...misguided.

In my spiritual tradition, the Bible is not to be taken literally, but "interpreted through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit" (I know, this is such a vague and amorphous thing which is why, even in the church we have never ending fights about this stuff).

In the ideal, I don't bring my existing morality and use it as a lens to interpret the words on the page, I open myself to the voice of God and allow God to speak into my heart. Things like rationality, morality, and philosophy will play a role in interpretation, but the interpretation is primarily done by God's Spirit, not by me.

Of course, even this has been debated for millenia and whether there are bounds on it and how you know when it's the Spirit or your ego etc. etc. etc.

ApolloAndy said:
Is your claim that a citizen should only vote or call for legislation that is based on a philosophical or rational notion or morality, but not solely on a religious one? That is both wholly impractical and dehumanizing.

There's all sorts of crazy stuff forbidden in the Bible - tattoos, eating shellfish, getting remarried after divorce, women speaking in church, sex before marriage, wearing clothes made with mixed fabric, and on and on.

That's why we need other metrics by which to determine what laws should govern us. If the same book that says gay marriage is bad also says that haircuts are bad, then we have every right to require a litmus test of sorts for everything else based on said book.

Re: Gator

What about two minors in consensual sex? That's against the law in many places as well.

Hmmm, that's a puzzler, and not AT ALL what I was thinking about when composing my last tidbit.

I guess I'm going to have to go with the idea that even with 2 "consenting" minors (quotes because consent is the sticky issue here IMO) - there's usually going to be one person in a position of power.

If both parties (or all parties if that's their thing) are on an equal footing, then I'd say there should be no law prohibiting their actions provided that no one is being "taken advantage of" and no one is being harmed.

Bakeman31092 said:

Impractical, probably. Dehumanizing, how?

Perhaps this is the heart of my position over the past couple pages:

I find it arrogant to claim that rationality, morality, ethics, philosophy, etc. is objectively and universally a better basis for truth than religion (in addition to the fact that it seems just as imaginary). For the vast, vast majority of the people in the world throughout history, religion is the most important lens through which the world is interpreted. I suspect for most of those people, they'd rather cut off both their arms than be told "you can't use religion to inform your values/voting/actions."

Has it been corrupted? Surely. (I think it has in the case against gay marriage, for instance). Does it still create necessary and beneficial outcomes for the world? Absolutely. (The vast majority of charity giving is religiously motivated). Is it right to ask people to set it aside when living in community? I have a hard time going there.

The other difficult part is that some people are simply more mature at 14 or 15 or 16 than others. We have laws so we have to put a hard number on it, but at the end of the days it's sort of an arbitrary number (and different from state to state...figure that out).

"Quick! Let's drive to Arkansas so we can have sex!"

Edit: Just for clarification, that was a hypothetical utterance from an imaginary pair of young people wanting to have sex. I was not propositioning Bakeman.

Here we go again, Andy. :)

I find it arrogant to claim that rationality, morality, ethics, philosophy, etc. is objectively and universally a better basis for truth than religion (in addition to the fact that it seems just as imaginary).

Maybe they are all imaginary, but religion is in a separate category. Philosophy, ethics, logic, etc., describe the ongoing pursuit to find answers to the questions of morality. You could argue that religion is the same thing, but the key difference is that the former are human activities trying to address human concerns, while the latter is steeped in supernatural presuppositions.

You said that you basically let the Holy Spirit make the final call on Biblical interpretation, but in order to do that you have to assume (or have faith) that there exists such a Holy Spirit. I don't have to make that assumption when practicing ethics; I know people exist, and I know that they can be happy and can suffer. I'm willing to bet that you and I could deliberate any moral question, you looking to your Bible and letting the Holy Spirit speak to your heart, me just thinking about it, and most of the time we would probably reach similar conclusions. Same for most other people, because most people are good. Doesn't that suggest that we are engaging in the same activity, and that religion is not needed for it?

I was not propositioning Bakeman.

I'm devastated.

Based on a news headline I saw just today, not only is Chick-fil-A anti-gay, they are anti-breastfeeding too. ;-)

Bakeman31092 said:

...because most people are good.

Not Carrie. She hates babies.

She's obviously never tasted one.

ApolloAndy said:
For the vast, vast majority of the people in the world throughout history, religion is the most important lens through which the world is interpreted. I suspect for most of those people, they'd rather cut off both their arms than be told "you can't use religion to inform your values/voting/actions."

But isn't that at least partially because religion co-opted preexisting moral behavior, to the extent of subsequently claiming that moral behavior as religion-based? In other words, morality existed prior to religion, and only since the aforementioned co-opting have the two been conflated.

That people cannot or will not separate the two is not justification for allowing other religious-based concepts to be used as the basis for legislation.

Bakeman31092 said:

Doesn't that suggest that we are engaging in the same activity, and that religion is not needed for it?

Even if religion's only purpose were morality, I doubt we'd come to all the same conclusions. In fact, I'm almost certain we wouldn't, because in my religious tradition, the goal isn't simply "Don't be a dick" (though that is a pretty basic tenet). The thrust is by loving others unconditionally the way we are loved by God, we find true fulfillment, peace, and meaning in life. Whether or not that's right or wrong, philosophical morality isn't even in the same ballpark or, to quote Pulp Fiction isn't even playing the same sport, so while we might agree on the "don't be a dick", we almost certainly don't agree on the "the only path to fullness in life is to empty yourself for the sake of others the way Jesus did" part.