- comment
Shaun Kenney - body
- Define family then.
- comment Shaun Kenney
- body
- No -- I think it's only fair for a hypothesis to be offered in place of the current definition.
In which case, I'd like to see a definition of family. I see groups of teenagers walking in the mall, or throngs of people protesting, or small children playing games. But those are not families.
So what is a family? I want to hear (read) the alternative definition.
- comment Shaun Kenney
- body
- You still haven't answered the question. All you've done is add semantic value, changing family to household and expecting the terms to be synonymous.
I would like to see a precise definition of family. Clearly we've demonstrated that it isn't a group of androgynous people collected together. Neither is it even a group of people who enjoy one another's company. Nor is it innocent bonding between children or friends.
If someone is going to challenge the definition of family, then I would at least expect to know what the alternative is, yes? That's only proper -- otherwise we're not discussing an alternative at all.
What is your definition of family, in contrast with the commonly accepted definition of the basic building blocks -- a mother, a father, and a child?
- comment Shaun Kenney
- body
- Let's start with the initial premise that is being challenged:
Marriage is the union between one man and one woman.
A family consists of a mother, a father, and a child.
***
Now naturally, there are differences. Divorces occur and fathers/mothers leave. Is the single father/mother and their children any less of a family? Of course not -- they are still a family unit.
Now add to the mix a set of two fathers, or two mothers, or two mothers and two fathers and a set of children. Is this a family unit?
Extrapolate further. A man, three women, and a dog. Is this a family?
Seven men, three women, a cattle farm, and thirty workers. Is this a family?
The question is: how much farther can we extrapolate a unit of people before it (a) ceases to be a family and (b) what is the basic building block of society that allows for the fullest range of experience for a young child?
The answer to (b) seems easy enough -- we will encounter males, we will encounter females. One of each will do. This is basic, not essential.
The answer to (a) is a bit more tricky. I would answer that a boundary is crossed when additions are made to the family unit that are extraordinary. Ask any family that has had to merge stepchildren to understand that there is still and always a them vs. us attitude to the newcomers.
Deletions from the family unit are not where the line is crossed. Children can lose a parent, parents can lose children, but the bond remains. Even children that lose both parents still consider each other family, be it from a young age even into elderly ages (and hence where cousins still share that bond).
In short, the basic elements are a mother, father, and child. Extraordinary additions to the unit are simply that -- extra, and properly not considered family. Families can be merged (stepparents and stepchildren for example), but only with parallel structures. Extracirricular members -- invited guests, housekeepers, friends -- we may feel close attachment to, and consider them part of our home.
Household perhaps, but the bonds of family are much more base.
Now as to why this is, I don't have an answer. Human beings have a remarkable talent for taking what they want to believe and turning that into what is. Unfortunately for us, imagining reality and reality itself are two entirely different things.
When it comes to familial arrangements, every child has the right to a mother and a father. Even in the sense when one of the parents is absent, there is still an absence. Adding to the arrangement only duplicates what nature preordains.
That is the best, rambling, nonsensical, stream-of-consciousnes (and non-religious) defense of the nuclear family I can think of at the moment. :)
Offered for the spirit of conversation!
- comment Shaun Kenney
- body
- JadedJD -- I can only state the case as obviously as I can. Confusing family with household is entirely the point, and if I've agitated you, then I sincerely apologize. This having been said, I refuse to allow definitions of what is and what is not a household refine family into something it is not, though families certainly qualify as households.
David -- who mentioned theocracy? The only imposition of beliefs I see is the other way around, that being a re-definition of family into something far from it.
Regards, gentlemen...
- comment ....
- body
- As always members of the Catholic Church preaches Hate on this issue...
- comment Politicl.Animal
- body
- But a member of the family is also not necessarily a member of the household. For example, I am my parents' son, but by moving out I am no longer part of their household. Yet we are still "family" in the blood sense, in the sense of heredity, which seems to be the vein Kenney is operating out of. JD is working from the legal definition.
So what we have here is a genetic definition of family that is seeking to replace the already existing legal definition of family, under the guise of protecting "traditional" marriage.
Very good, Kenney-san. I cannot hope to approach such cunning, but let me make an attempt at shedding light on the main issue.
Man meets woman. Man and woman do what men and women have been doing for centuries. Baby is born. Man and woman do not get married. Baby lives with woman, man lives somewhere else. Are they a family? Is simply the woman and baby a family?
Man meets another woman, they get married. Does he have one family, or two? Are all four people members of the same family? Is the son a part of his family, but not the first woman, due to heredity? Would any children born to the second woman still be part of the first woman's family? If the first woman meets another man and has another child while living with him, are there two families, or three?
Your definition, while elegant in its simplicity, is woefully unable to handle the real world. The legal definition, that JD provided, rests on cohabitation. This is operable. This is tangible. This is rational.
This is why I am no longer a conservative. Life is not black and white. Simple answers don't work, except in political campaigns. Life is complex, and requires complex solutions. Can Christianity provide such solutions? Absolutely. Is the sentence "A family consists of a mother, a father, and a child" such a solution?
No.
- comment PyreDruid
- body
- Sorry this might be days late, and may have been said, but I had to leave my stance,
Isn't what the Pope says applicable to Catholics only, isnt he in essence saying that Catholic families can't be gay/lesbian? Since I'm assuming, Baptists, Hindus, Druid's etc. shouldn't be too concerned with what the Pope is saying. And he's supposed to say whats right or wrong for Catholics (or at least interpret what's right or wrong, not 100% clear on that) so what's the big problem about this.
It doesn't touch the legality of it though. Just my opinion.
- comment teacherken
- body
- so when the ambassador an Islamic country arrives with 3 wives and the 10 children he has by then, under Virginia law his household will still not qualify as a family?
Definitions of family are far from universal.
We can be biblical and look at whom Jesus defined as his family. That's New Testament. Or we can reincarnate Jacob with his two wives and two concubines, and you tell me they are not his family.
Methinks you are being silly Shaun. Oh, and what the law says does not mean it is correct. After it was this state whose anit-miscegination lawas were the subject of hte Lving v Virginia which said that a white and a black could not construct a family even through marriage - which would certainly make my nephew, his wife and their two duaghters at least a bit puzzled.
- comment James Atticus Bowden
- body
- Jaded JD and fellow travelers: "marriage is a religious institute properly defined only by religious authorities". No.
Actually, marriage is a cultural institution. The civilization and country, nation, tribe, etc. that grows from it defines marriage in many variations.
The anti-Christian (rabidly anti-Catholic) French Revolution defined marriage by civil authorities. Likewise, their intellectual descendants - the Communists - did and do the same.
Because we are a federal Republic marriage is written into our civil law by the legislatures.
No civilization ever confused homosexual behavior with marriage and the family. Ever. Not one. Zip. Zero. Nada. None. Null set.
Only modern Pagans and sissy Christians - Liberals are so confused and clueless.
Makes you wonder what Law Schools teach.
- comment Shaun Kenney
- body
- James -- Catholics are obligated to defend the structure of family. If your beliefs do not coincide with the Magisterium, then I'm sure the Episcopalian Church would be more than happy to accomodate heterodox views.
All that having been said...
Why is it that opponents of family are interjecting religious sentiment into the conversation?
This is not an argument from religion.
This is an argument from nature.
Nature as prearranged the basic building blocs of the family -- a mother, a father, and a child.
Kenneth brings up the idea of an Islamic marriage (though I don't think he understand the conditions that allow for them, but nonetheless the example is relevant). Here still, you have the basic elements in play -- a mother, a father, and a child. Are there multiplicities? Yes.
Is monogamy preferential to polygamy? Whenever the charge is brought to family revisionists, the polygamy-as-acceptable issue is brushed aside as ridiculous, so certainly Kenneth is not arguing that point...
Pyredruid brings up an interesting point -- what is good for Catholics is good for Catholics, Baptists for Baptists, Muslims for Muslims, Wiccans for Wiccans, etc.
This goes back to the imposition of religious beliefs on what nature itself imposes, IMO. If nature preordains that the essential elements of family are a mother, father, and child, then no amount of religious sentiment is going to change that; no more than a religion demanding the sky to be orange at high noon.
I do agree with the sentiment -- marriage laws were originally proscribed by the state to prevent "mixed" marriages (whites and blacks, Catholics and Protestants). I certainly don't feel the need for the state to grant it's imprimatur in order to be married.
This goes to a larger question: WHY should the state favor family?
Society's building block is within family. It is how children first become accustomed to how to operate in the world.
** I want to stress at this point that I am not making an argument against individualism. Society involving social interaction, I only want to answer where the first and prime instance of societal interaction exists, that being within the family. **
Healthy families that allow for first formation for it's future citizens are a concern of the state. How families choose to form their children is entirely the business of that family, but that the essential points exist are a concern if the state wishes to continue.
We have already established there are things that are not family: groups of teenagers, children playing in the backyard, nursing homes, etc. Groups do not translate into families.
If groups are not families, and individuals are not families, then what is a family it its most basic sense?
I argue/hypothesize/posit that it must be the most basic component defined by nature: a father, a mother, and a child. Adding to this while deleting the most critical parts (two fathers and a child, two mothers and a child) destroys the familial element. Adding extraordinary components (two fathers and three mothers, a father four mothers and seventeen children) also destroys the familial aspect. Deleting key components without replacing them does not break the familial bond (losing a mother, a father, or a child) because the basic components still exist in abstentsia. We recognize the absense of a parent or child in a way we would not recognize the additional presence of another father or mother.
Stepfamilies of course merge like components, but again in the constraint of one mother, one father replacing what is absent.
This is all very basic and free-flowing, and only intended to stimulate discussion. I still maintain that the basic element of family is the mother, father, and child.
All other attempts to redefine family have failed -- to create a different version of family would be a feat to rival that of Plato's Republic. Best of luck!
If someone disagrees, then we have still yet to see an acceptable alternative to what nature itself has preordained. Plato will be impressed!!!
- comment Shaun Kenney
- body
- David, just because you read an article telling you something you want to believe, doesn't make it true.
Did you read the professional criticism of that study?
What, if anything, do you suppose separates us from animals?
- comment James Atticus Bowden
- body
- How many mammals eat their young? Is that a good argument for cannabalism?
- comment Shaun Kenney
- body
- David, are you seriously arguing that homosexual acts are animalistic instinct? Or that human beings are no different than animals? I've heard some pretty hateful people argue as such, but never from one defending homosexuality!
Are you even thinking about the consequences of what you are saying? I'm certain you're not -- otherwise you wouldn't be repeating such a ridiculous and thoughtless comparison.
- comment Shaun Kenney
- body
- How many mammals eat their young? Is that a good argument for cannibalism?
Among animals lacking the use of reason, I'm sure it might be...
Aquinas would argue that animals simply do not have the capacity for love as humans do, but that might be a step to far in a conversation where the opposition refuses to admit human beings are superior to (and not just different than) animals.
- comment PyreDruid
- body
- Now to go after the other side, wouldn't saying that humans are superior than animals because they can love in ways that animals can't possibly be evidence for allowing gay/lesbian families (I'm thinking that since humans can love people for reasons that are not just propogation of the species that would make us superior), after all isn't a loving homosexual "family" be better than an unloving heterosexual family? I know theres a big thing about what makes a family, but I'm more concerned about whats best for the children involved.
Just wondering what you think about that?
- comment James Atticus Bowden
- body
- Walter: Thanks for the link to the Inquisition torture tools to help understand your post - kinda.
Do you think those tools were invented by the Catholic Church or by others and used by the Church?
I believe most instruments of torture which are used in the name of religion were first invented for other purposes.
The North American Indians tortured prisoners before they burned them at the stake for their spirits.
The Aztecs had ritual murder as did the Incas and Mayans.
The Nazi Human Secularists and Communist Human Secularists didn't get their torture devices from some church gift shop.
Gee, you can go on and on about every culture (producing a country or tribe etc) doing terrible things to people, so I don't follow why there should be an argument for torture. In fact, I don't understand your point or why it was directed at my comments. Little help?
- comment Jason Kenney
- body
- David, I think he took your comment and went one step further. Sure, we're animals, but what seperates us from the beasts is a mental process that allows us to overpower "animalistic urges". There may be an animalistic urge to use the bathroom wherever we please when the urge arises or fear the crash of thunder because we think of it as a predator approaching, but we know better. So to say it's "natural" isn't a viable argument because we humans don't just do things naturally.
- comment Shaun Kenney
- body
- I thought I had been pretty clear about what separates us from aninmals (reasoning faculties being among them).
David, for the sake of conversation, maybe you could explain what you feel separates human beings from animals? I think Jason put the question forward correctly.
- comment Shaun Kenney
- body
- David, you've sidestepped three critical points in order to emphasize culture over reality:
(1) Reason allows us to restrain instictive urges.
(2) Reasoning faculties are the prime separator between animals and humans.
(3) Culture is not a product of reason.
Now I will most certainly agree with you that we should not try to impose beliefs on scientific inquiry. But to argue that animals of the same sex copulating equates some legitimacy to homosexuality is false to the extreme. The statement simply does not follow, given (a) human beings do not have sex for procreation alone, or pleasure alone -- the act is joint, (b) human beings can exercise reason and restrain impulses to have sex, (c) animals do not have the capacity to form meaningful relationships, unless you are willing to draw the direct comparison to homosexual acts being raw, instinctive, and "animalistic" -- essentially the surrender of one's reasoning faculties.
Again, I've heard some rather hateful people draw that comparison, but never as a defense for homosexuality...
Glad the conversation is remaining civil. Perhaps you would like to take a stab at the first three points above?
I disagree that reason leads to culture (ants and bees have culture in a primal sense, but certainly not reasoning faculties).
- comment Shaun Kenney
- body
- I certainly wasn't asking you to prove much of anything to me -- only the basis of your argument. I'm sorry that offends you, but I think it's only proper to support claims.
To your first point, the sexual act is both procreative and unitative -- it produces children by design (and I use that term loosely, not in the ID sense) and it produces pleasure.
Remove one of these objects from the equation, and something is lost from the sexual act. I would entirely agree with you that the sexual act is for bonding and pleasure, but when it is only for the purposes of bonding and pleasure and artificially removes the procreative aspect, then it is no longer bonding -- it is abusing the other individual for the sake of pleasure.
Sex for the procreative purposes alone also cheapens the sexual act, because there is indeed a unitative quality to the sexual act.
In this sense, one cannot remove the procreative and the unitative qualities of the sexual act, for reasons explained. Some might artificially remove them, but that leads down two roads that are not mutually exclusive: (a) reducing the other person to an object for sexual pleasure, or (b) reducing humanity to a mechanistic existence.
To your second point, culture comes from interaction. Two-year olds create culture at a day-care, but they certainly haven't developed their reasoning faculties. Bees have a culture. Monkeys have culture. Lions have culture. Ants have culture. Humans have culture, but it is certainly not prerequisited by reason, yes? This is why I continue to dismiss this as non-sequitur reasoning (and why I continue to press for explanations you don't seem comfortable explaining).
My thoughts anyhow, on a horse we seem to have beaten pretty thouroughly.
- comment Shaun Kenney
- body
- Heh heh -- fair enough.
- comment NotNotJayHughes
- body
- Shaun:
When you invoke the concepts of reason and instinctive urges could you clarify?
Personally, I'm a fan of the Aristotelian division of the human: reason/passion/appetite.
But I would take the division between reason and what you call instinctive urges a bit further. You assert in an earlier post that reason can restrain instinctive urges. I disagree.
I would argue that each human can choose between the two polar opposites (reason/passion) as he/she navigates through life.
More later...I have to be up at 0400 and when that's your wake up call 2139 is pretty late.
All the best,
Jay
- comment Shaun Kenney
- body
- Well, my intent was threefold:
(1) Animals react on instinct not reason. Human beings use their reason to quell their instinct. Therefore, to suggest that animals exhibit homosexual tendencies is to imply that the homosexual act is based in the same base root -- instinct. I disagree and found it strange (absurd even) for a member of Equality Loundon to even suggest a line of reasoning that frankly, I'm used to hearing from people who just outright hate gays.
(2) I agree with the Aristotlean mean, and that virtue lies in the mean. Reason IMO does indeed guide towards virtue, and leads away from vices on either extreme.
(3) My emphasis on the sexual act being both unitative and procreative is straight from Humanae Vitae. So a Catholic perspective yes, but a philosophical one based on nature and not one on theology -- at least I would like to think as such.
Taking it one step furtherwith the example of the Aristotlean mean -- on either end you have the procreative act and the unitative (pleasurable) act, and in the middle you have the virtuous mean that is intended by design.
24 Comments:
In which case, I'd like to see a definition of family. I see groups of teenagers walking in the mall, or throngs of people protesting, or small children playing games. But those are not families.
So what is a family? I want to hear (read) the alternative definition.
I would like to see a precise definition of family. Clearly we've demonstrated that it isn't a group of androgynous people collected together. Neither is it even a group of people who enjoy one another's company. Nor is it innocent bonding between children or friends.
If someone is going to challenge the definition of family, then I would at least expect to know what the alternative is, yes? That's only proper -- otherwise we're not discussing an alternative at all.
What is your definition of family, in contrast with the commonly accepted definition of the basic building blocks -- a mother, a father, and a child?
Marriage is the union between one man and one woman.
A family consists of a mother, a father, and a child.
***
Now naturally, there are differences. Divorces occur and fathers/mothers leave. Is the single father/mother and their children any less of a family? Of course not -- they are still a family unit.
Now add to the mix a set of two fathers, or two mothers, or two mothers and two fathers and a set of children. Is this a family unit?
Extrapolate further. A man, three women, and a dog. Is this a family?
Seven men, three women, a cattle farm, and thirty workers. Is this a family?
The question is: how much farther can we extrapolate a unit of people before it (a) ceases to be a family and (b) what is the basic building block of society that allows for the fullest range of experience for a young child?
The answer to (b) seems easy enough -- we will encounter males, we will encounter females. One of each will do. This is basic, not essential.
The answer to (a) is a bit more tricky. I would answer that a boundary is crossed when additions are made to the family unit that are extraordinary. Ask any family that has had to merge stepchildren to understand that there is still and always a them vs. us attitude to the newcomers.
Deletions from the family unit are not where the line is crossed. Children can lose a parent, parents can lose children, but the bond remains. Even children that lose both parents still consider each other family, be it from a young age even into elderly ages (and hence where cousins still share that bond).
In short, the basic elements are a mother, father, and child. Extraordinary additions to the unit are simply that -- extra, and properly not considered family. Families can be merged (stepparents and stepchildren for example), but only with parallel structures. Extracirricular members -- invited guests, housekeepers, friends -- we may feel close attachment to, and consider them part of our home.
Household perhaps, but the bonds of family are much more base.
Now as to why this is, I don't have an answer. Human beings have a remarkable talent for taking what they want to believe and turning that into what is. Unfortunately for us, imagining reality and reality itself are two entirely different things.
When it comes to familial arrangements, every child has the right to a mother and a father. Even in the sense when one of the parents is absent, there is still an absence. Adding to the arrangement only duplicates what nature preordains.
That is the best, rambling, nonsensical, stream-of-consciousnes (and non-religious) defense of the nuclear family I can think of at the moment. :)
Offered for the spirit of conversation!
David -- who mentioned theocracy? The only imposition of beliefs I see is the other way around, that being a re-definition of family into something far from it.
Regards, gentlemen...
So what we have here is a genetic definition of family that is seeking to replace the already existing legal definition of family, under the guise of protecting "traditional" marriage.
Very good, Kenney-san. I cannot hope to approach such cunning, but let me make an attempt at shedding light on the main issue.
Man meets woman. Man and woman do what men and women have been doing for centuries. Baby is born. Man and woman do not get married. Baby lives with woman, man lives somewhere else. Are they a family? Is simply the woman and baby a family?
Man meets another woman, they get married. Does he have one family, or two? Are all four people members of the same family? Is the son a part of his family, but not the first woman, due to heredity? Would any children born to the second woman still be part of the first woman's family? If the first woman meets another man and has another child while living with him, are there two families, or three?
Your definition, while elegant in its simplicity, is woefully unable to handle the real world. The legal definition, that JD provided, rests on cohabitation. This is operable. This is tangible. This is rational.
This is why I am no longer a conservative. Life is not black and white. Simple answers don't work, except in political campaigns. Life is complex, and requires complex solutions. Can Christianity provide such solutions? Absolutely. Is the sentence "A family consists of a mother, a father, and a child" such a solution?
No.
Isn't what the Pope says applicable to Catholics only, isnt he in essence saying that Catholic families can't be gay/lesbian? Since I'm assuming, Baptists, Hindus, Druid's etc. shouldn't be too concerned with what the Pope is saying. And he's supposed to say whats right or wrong for Catholics (or at least interpret what's right or wrong, not 100% clear on that) so what's the big problem about this.
It doesn't touch the legality of it though. Just my opinion.
Definitions of family are far from universal.
We can be biblical and look at whom Jesus defined as his family. That's New Testament. Or we can reincarnate Jacob with his two wives and two concubines, and you tell me they are not his family.
Methinks you are being silly Shaun. Oh, and what the law says does not mean it is correct. After it was this state whose anit-miscegination lawas were the subject of hte Lving v Virginia which said that a white and a black could not construct a family even through marriage - which would certainly make my nephew, his wife and their two duaghters at least a bit puzzled.
Actually, marriage is a cultural institution. The civilization and country, nation, tribe, etc. that grows from it defines marriage in many variations.
The anti-Christian (rabidly anti-Catholic) French Revolution defined marriage by civil authorities. Likewise, their intellectual descendants - the Communists - did and do the same.
Because we are a federal Republic marriage is written into our civil law by the legislatures.
No civilization ever confused homosexual behavior with marriage and the family. Ever. Not one. Zip. Zero. Nada. None. Null set.
Only modern Pagans and sissy Christians - Liberals are so confused and clueless.
Makes you wonder what Law Schools teach.
All that having been said...
Why is it that opponents of family are interjecting religious sentiment into the conversation?
This is not an argument from religion.
This is an argument from nature.
Nature as prearranged the basic building blocs of the family -- a mother, a father, and a child.
Kenneth brings up the idea of an Islamic marriage (though I don't think he understand the conditions that allow for them, but nonetheless the example is relevant). Here still, you have the basic elements in play -- a mother, a father, and a child. Are there multiplicities? Yes.
Is monogamy preferential to polygamy? Whenever the charge is brought to family revisionists, the polygamy-as-acceptable issue is brushed aside as ridiculous, so certainly Kenneth is not arguing that point...
Pyredruid brings up an interesting point -- what is good for Catholics is good for Catholics, Baptists for Baptists, Muslims for Muslims, Wiccans for Wiccans, etc.
This goes back to the imposition of religious beliefs on what nature itself imposes, IMO. If nature preordains that the essential elements of family are a mother, father, and child, then no amount of religious sentiment is going to change that; no more than a religion demanding the sky to be orange at high noon.
I do agree with the sentiment -- marriage laws were originally proscribed by the state to prevent "mixed" marriages (whites and blacks, Catholics and Protestants). I certainly don't feel the need for the state to grant it's imprimatur in order to be married.
This goes to a larger question: WHY should the state favor family?
Society's building block is within family. It is how children first become accustomed to how to operate in the world.
** I want to stress at this point that I am not making an argument against individualism. Society involving social interaction, I only want to answer where the first and prime instance of societal interaction exists, that being within the family. **
Healthy families that allow for first formation for it's future citizens are a concern of the state. How families choose to form their children is entirely the business of that family, but that the essential points exist are a concern if the state wishes to continue.
We have already established there are things that are not family: groups of teenagers, children playing in the backyard, nursing homes, etc. Groups do not translate into families.
If groups are not families, and individuals are not families, then what is a family it its most basic sense?
I argue/hypothesize/posit that it must be the most basic component defined by nature: a father, a mother, and a child. Adding to this while deleting the most critical parts (two fathers and a child, two mothers and a child) destroys the familial element. Adding extraordinary components (two fathers and three mothers, a father four mothers and seventeen children) also destroys the familial aspect. Deleting key components without replacing them does not break the familial bond (losing a mother, a father, or a child) because the basic components still exist in abstentsia. We recognize the absense of a parent or child in a way we would not recognize the additional presence of another father or mother.
Stepfamilies of course merge like components, but again in the constraint of one mother, one father replacing what is absent.
This is all very basic and free-flowing, and only intended to stimulate discussion. I still maintain that the basic element of family is the mother, father, and child.
All other attempts to redefine family have failed -- to create a different version of family would be a feat to rival that of Plato's Republic. Best of luck!
If someone disagrees, then we have still yet to see an acceptable alternative to what nature itself has preordained. Plato will be impressed!!!
Did you read the professional criticism of that study?
What, if anything, do you suppose separates us from animals?
Are you even thinking about the consequences of what you are saying? I'm certain you're not -- otherwise you wouldn't be repeating such a ridiculous and thoughtless comparison.
Among animals lacking the use of reason, I'm sure it might be...
Aquinas would argue that animals simply do not have the capacity for love as humans do, but that might be a step to far in a conversation where the opposition refuses to admit human beings are superior to (and not just different than) animals.
Just wondering what you think about that?
Do you think those tools were invented by the Catholic Church or by others and used by the Church?
I believe most instruments of torture which are used in the name of religion were first invented for other purposes.
The North American Indians tortured prisoners before they burned them at the stake for their spirits.
The Aztecs had ritual murder as did the Incas and Mayans.
The Nazi Human Secularists and Communist Human Secularists didn't get their torture devices from some church gift shop.
Gee, you can go on and on about every culture (producing a country or tribe etc) doing terrible things to people, so I don't follow why there should be an argument for torture. In fact, I don't understand your point or why it was directed at my comments. Little help?
David, for the sake of conversation, maybe you could explain what you feel separates human beings from animals? I think Jason put the question forward correctly.
(1) Reason allows us to restrain instictive urges.
(2) Reasoning faculties are the prime separator between animals and humans.
(3) Culture is not a product of reason.
Now I will most certainly agree with you that we should not try to impose beliefs on scientific inquiry. But to argue that animals of the same sex copulating equates some legitimacy to homosexuality is false to the extreme. The statement simply does not follow, given (a) human beings do not have sex for procreation alone, or pleasure alone -- the act is joint, (b) human beings can exercise reason and restrain impulses to have sex, (c) animals do not have the capacity to form meaningful relationships, unless you are willing to draw the direct comparison to homosexual acts being raw, instinctive, and "animalistic" -- essentially the surrender of one's reasoning faculties.
Again, I've heard some rather hateful people draw that comparison, but never as a defense for homosexuality...
Glad the conversation is remaining civil. Perhaps you would like to take a stab at the first three points above?
I disagree that reason leads to culture (ants and bees have culture in a primal sense, but certainly not reasoning faculties).
To your first point, the sexual act is both procreative and unitative -- it produces children by design (and I use that term loosely, not in the ID sense) and it produces pleasure.
Remove one of these objects from the equation, and something is lost from the sexual act. I would entirely agree with you that the sexual act is for bonding and pleasure, but when it is only for the purposes of bonding and pleasure and artificially removes the procreative aspect, then it is no longer bonding -- it is abusing the other individual for the sake of pleasure.
Sex for the procreative purposes alone also cheapens the sexual act, because there is indeed a unitative quality to the sexual act.
In this sense, one cannot remove the procreative and the unitative qualities of the sexual act, for reasons explained. Some might artificially remove them, but that leads down two roads that are not mutually exclusive: (a) reducing the other person to an object for sexual pleasure, or (b) reducing humanity to a mechanistic existence.
To your second point, culture comes from interaction. Two-year olds create culture at a day-care, but they certainly haven't developed their reasoning faculties. Bees have a culture. Monkeys have culture. Lions have culture. Ants have culture. Humans have culture, but it is certainly not prerequisited by reason, yes? This is why I continue to dismiss this as non-sequitur reasoning (and why I continue to press for explanations you don't seem comfortable explaining).
My thoughts anyhow, on a horse we seem to have beaten pretty thouroughly.
When you invoke the concepts of reason and instinctive urges could you clarify?
Personally, I'm a fan of the Aristotelian division of the human: reason/passion/appetite.
But I would take the division between reason and what you call instinctive urges a bit further. You assert in an earlier post that reason can restrain instinctive urges. I disagree.
I would argue that each human can choose between the two polar opposites (reason/passion) as he/she navigates through life.
More later...I have to be up at 0400 and when that's your wake up call 2139 is pretty late.
All the best,
Jay
(1) Animals react on instinct not reason. Human beings use their reason to quell their instinct. Therefore, to suggest that animals exhibit homosexual tendencies is to imply that the homosexual act is based in the same base root -- instinct. I disagree and found it strange (absurd even) for a member of Equality Loundon to even suggest a line of reasoning that frankly, I'm used to hearing from people who just outright hate gays.
(2) I agree with the Aristotlean mean, and that virtue lies in the mean. Reason IMO does indeed guide towards virtue, and leads away from vices on either extreme.
(3) My emphasis on the sexual act being both unitative and procreative is straight from Humanae Vitae. So a Catholic perspective yes, but a philosophical one based on nature and not one on theology -- at least I would like to think as such.
Taking it one step furtherwith the example of the Aristotlean mean -- on either end you have the procreative act and the unitative (pleasurable) act, and in the middle you have the virtuous mean that is intended by design.
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