Demonizing people

Discussion in 'Religion' started by Sorcerer, Feb 24, 2014.

  1. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    10,890
    Wait, wut? My points were simply:
    1. Contrary to Syne's assertion, and regardless of the factuality of the insult, an insult is not an ad hominem unless it's actually used in a certain way.
    2. You're correct - an argument that is a fallacy is not neccessarily untrue, or for that matter, invalid. An argument that is a fallacy in one context might be perfectly valid in another context, that was the point of raising Mandy Rice-Davie's testimony in the Profumo affair, and that includes the examples I gave in this post. There are many contexts where writing off anything Syne has to say as the ramblings of a homophobic bigot might be perfectly valid. This can also be true for other fallacies as well.

    It's one of my pet peeves. Ad-hominem is a word that people like to bandy about without actually understanding what it means and it annoys me.

    Sweet as.
     
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  3. Sorcerer Put a Spell on you Registered Senior Member

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    And my point was even clearer: I don't care about your fallacies or technicalties, I only care that religionists are persecuting gay men and women, and they should be called out on that, and referring to someone on this thread as a homophobe is not an insult if he is a homophobe, it's a statement of fact.

    I would not write off anything Syne or anyone else says here as the ramblings you describe; everything should be taken as it's said. If he says something sensible then I'll listen to it.

    I never use 'ad-hominem' so you're safe.

    What does 'sweet as.' mean?
     
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  5. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    Actually, no. The idea that marriage is exclusively between males and females is a relatively moder invention by european christians. Same sex marriage was accepted by the roman republic and accorded the same legal rights as mixed sex marriages up until the 4th or 5th century, when christianity became the official state religion, for example, the Codex Theodosianus forbids same sex marriage and mandates a punishment of death.
     
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  7. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    I care about them when a wrong argument is presented based on a misunderstanding or a dishonest representation of a fallacy, or a fallicious argument, which is then used to substantiate discrimination of some form or another.

    When I say "calling syne a homophobic bigot is an insult, not an adhominem fallacy" I'm not commenting, one way or another, on the factuality of the assertion that Syne is a homophobic bigot, I am simply couching my argument in the terms that Syne used (remember, the original post was addressing Syne's fallacy abuse).

    Then, for the most part, things are as they should be.

    Personally, I think that anybody engaging in debate of any nature should learn to recognize fallacies. Being able to spot them in anothers argument and avoid them in your own is to be desired.

    http://www.chemistry.co.nz/kiwi.htm#sweet-as:
     
  8. Randwolf Ignorance killed the cat Valued Senior Member

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    Careful with the history lessons. The sheriff around these parts doesn't always appreciate them. I know, I already tried this approach:

    For which effort I received this:
    I imagine his next step in ascendance to total megalomaniac will be an attempt to moderate a moderator. Better watch yourself there Trippy...
     
  9. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    I'll see Syne's Wikipedia article and raise him Peer reviewed literature
     
  10. Sorcerer Put a Spell on you Registered Senior Member

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    kiwi slang: everyone should understand it.
     
  11. quinnsong Valued Senior Member

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    Oh great Kiwi Ebonics, got me some new slangs I can mangle!
     
  12. Aqueous Id flat Earth skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    I really liked the way Randwolf brought that back into focus and the way you perfected it with evidence. The threads get so interlaced with ideas that continuity like this helps bring it back home. It's a very powerful argument, because it establishes that Christianity is the exception to the rule, not the rule. I was reminded that there is some primitive culture (but I forgot which one) which has a marriage ritual in which the groom goes off to a hut with the groomsmen, where they bring him out of his virgin naivete through a same-sex encounter, after which he is ready to bed his bride. Obviously this is done to ensure the success of the honeymoon. This adds another dimension to the issue at hand, but further adds to the argument which debunks the myth that only hetero sex is "moral" or "accepted" or "normal". I think the references back to Greco-Roman cultures is powerful because we understand that these were the prevailing attitudes during the early Christian era, and they come from the most advanced civilizations that then existed in that part of the world, to include intelligent, well-educated people who could have arrived at the same homophobic attitudes through logic and reason, if that were the basis for it. Obviously it isn't. Considering how cruel and barbaric those cultures were in matters of slavery and punishment, it's almost an endorsement of same-sex partnering that they did not criminalize it.
     
  13. Jan Ardena OM!!! Valued Senior Member

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    13,968
    Trippy,

    I didn't say it was exclusively between anyone, and you're wrong about the Christian invention thing.

    Some real info (aside from wiki) would really help your plight on this, but I will offer this wiki link on ''marriage in ancient rome'' to shed real light on something we all know.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_in_ancient_Rome
    http://www.humanities360.com/index.php/the-history-of-ancient-babylonian-marriage-contracts-24244/

    jan.
     
  14. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    10,890
    Right... So when you said:
    You didn't mean to state that the original idea of marriage was that it was exclusively between men and women?

    The only Roman law on the matter was the Lex scatania which appears to have been passed sometime around the second century BC. As near as we can tell, the only thing it outlawed was the homosexual rape of young male roman citizens. It wasn't until 342 AD that a law was passed that survived in both the Theodosian Code and the Code of Justinian as a decree that "Marriage based on unnatural sex should be punished meticulously".

    I'll stick with the Journal of Family History for now, thanks.

    Addendum:

    Rome and the Middle Ages

    For the first three and a half centuries of its history, christianity probably had relatively little impact on the world around it. In the world's most powerful nation at the time, Rome, same-sex relationships and same-sex marriage were not uncommon nor prohibited (see Chapter 1). With the acension of the first Christian emperor, Constantine, that situation changed. Christian doctrine on many issues, including same-sex relationships, became incorporated into Roman law. In 342 CE, for example, the emperor Constantius II issued a regulation making same-sex marriage illegal. The regulation survives in the Theodosian code of 429, a compilation of laws adopted since the time of Constantine. It said in part anyone who "'marries' in the manner of a woman ... when venus is changed into another form" shall be subjected to "exquisite punishment".

    David E. Newton, Same-sex Marriage: A Reference Handbook.
     
  15. Randwolf Ignorance killed the cat Valued Senior Member

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    Typical obfuscation and disingenuity BS from jan. Just put your hands over your ears and go "naaa, naaa, naa" really loudly and you can pretend it isn't real.



    Just an excerpt, not that Jan will ever bother to read the paper from Yale (page 35):

    ...recent research by Professor Boswell argues that these ceremonies represented a more general acceptance of same-sex unions by the early Church.

    In 1989, Boswell claimed in print that:

    Gay clerics apparently took part in homosexual marriage ceremonies, which were widely known in the Catholic world from the fifth century on. Such ceremonies were performed in Catholic churches by priests and either established what the community regarded as marriages, or commemorated special friendships, in both cases in devoutly Christian terms. 13

    Boswell's claim was based upon information acquired while researching medieval Christian liturgical collections, evidence that will be revealed in a forthcoming book.

    Boswell has reportedly uncovered manuscript versions of Christian same-sex marriage liturgies taken from collections found in libraries and ecclesiastical collections throughout Europe. References to same-sex marriage ceremonies were discovered in legal texts from the fourth through the sixth centuries, as were references to the actual performance of such ceremonies occurring in the fifth through the nineteenth centuries. Boswell distinguishes between the enfraternization liturgies described above, of which scholars have known and written for some time, and these newly-discovered marriage liturgies, which he believes to confirm the existence of genuine, Church-sanctioned same-sex marriages.​


    Further...

    Significantly, this early brotherhood liturgy was acted out in a ceremony that was virtually identical to the liturgy later developed by the Church for different-sex marriages.

    The main difference between the brotherhood liturgy and the one originally used to wed different-sex couples was that the former emphasized the companionate 10 rather than the procreative 11 nature of the relationship. Hence, rather than orating on procreation, one version of the enfraternization liturgy read:

    O Almighty Lord, you have given to man to be made from the first in Your Image and Likeness by the gift of immortal life. You have willed to bind as brothers not only by nature but by bonds of the spirit Your most celebrated Apostles Peter, the Chief of them all, and Andrew; James and John the Sons of Zebedee; Philip and Batholomew. You made as very brothers Your Holy Martyrs Sergius and Bacchus, Cosmas and Damien, Cyrus and John. Bless Your Servants united also that, not bound by nature, (they be) joined with bonds of love. Grant them a love mutual and without offense and a brotherhood upset by naught of hatred all the days of their lives, through the might of Your All-Holy Spirit and through the intersession of our All-Holy spotless ever-Virgin Lady ....​


    Carry on Jan and Brother Syne...
     
    Last edited: Apr 11, 2014
  16. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    This, incidentally, is a classix example of poisoning the well:
    It also serves as an example of a genetic fallacy. The fact of pederasty in ancient rome has absolutely no relevance what so ever to the discussion of the status of same sex marriage.
     
  17. Aqueous Id flat Earth skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    6,152

    Exactly, in fact it's pathological to suggest it. Once again, generalizing to a stereotype. And of course if the logical conclusion is: marginalize same-sex partners since it increases pederasty--then we need to marginalize all heteros too since it leads to heterosexual abuses of children. That leads to only one feasible solution: ban all sexual conduct; live as monks and nuns, or even surgically remove the libido. :bugeye:
     

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