Stubenville course, crime, homosexual deviant

[Son_of_Jonah]

Maybe. I don’t know. All that stuff you just posted sounds like some kind of conspiracy theory. I also find it interesting that you claim you have finally got Christianity right. It’s funny, because generations before you have claimed the same thing. And they’ll carry on claiming it. As I stated, I wasn’t using mistakes of the past to beat up on Christianity, but to dismiss the idea that the church has always been a victim of oppression, which it surely hasn’t. I also know for a fact that there were not any major atheist or evolutionist movements from prior to the 19th century (and possibly not even prior to the 20th century, I’d have thought).

I myself don’t support the things I support because I feel they’re modern. I support them because I feel they’re right. I also oppose many things which may be considered modern, such as abortion.

But no one here has claimed that he “finally got Christianity right.” We’re Catholic. We claim Catholicism has been “gotten right” since the Church began nearly 2000 years ago. It hasn’t changed, so it’s still right.

 

[Regular_Atheist]

Yeah, such as hawaii.edu/powerkills/NOTE1.HTM .

I was referring to deaths due to Christianity. Why do you guys constantly use strawman arguments against me?

I said I wasn’t using what I stated to beat up on Christianity, but to dismiss the claim that Christianity has been the victim of oppression for centuries. I know atheists have done lots of bad things. I wasn’t trying to claim that atheism is more moral than Christianity.

But no one here has claimed that he “finally got Christianity right.” We’re Catholic. We claim Catholicism has been “gotten right” since the Church began nearly 2000 years ago. It hasn’t changed, so it’s still right.

So, you agree with the Crusades? Catholicism has certainly made many mistakes.

 

[sedonaman]

…I myself don’t support the things I support because I feel they’re modern. …

Then why did you say,

… Well, sure, but only because the world is growing up and is really having to drag the church kicking and screaming into the 21st century. …

as though the latest thought determined what is right ?

I support them because I feel they’re right.

By what standard or process do you use to determine that they “feel right”?

 

[Regular_Atheist]

Then why did you say, as though the latest thought determined what is right ?

I didn’t. I implied that the 21st century has got it right. Mostly, anyway. Better than that of 2000 years ago.

By what standard or process do you use to determine that they “feel right”?

When it comes to morals, there are a few factors. First of all the effect that actions have on other individuals and society as a whole, and whether or not the positive effects outway the negative effects. This, of course, rules out murder and thievery as even if you thought they weren’t immoral you would have to agree that they effect society in an extremely negative way, and almost stop it functioning. The golden rule is also good enough to decide what is morally neutral/good and what is wrong - we can safely assume that the way we treat others is the way others would like to be treated.

Things get a bit more complicated when we approach sexual deviancy, and homosexuality, paedophilia, and so on. We can safely say that paedophilia is wrong, as the negatives certainly outway the positives. In a nutshell, we must look at the effects of each action, and see what is a positive outcome and what is a negative outcome.

When we approach belief, it comes to the evidence.

 

[Joe_5859]

For those interested in more information, CNA just published an article about this that gives more perspective:

Franciscan University defends deviance course against critics

 

[manualman]

Well, if we’re talking about Great Britain or most of Europe, then the church pretty much controlled those countries. While I suppose you’re correct, there were many deaths that were caused due to religion. …

This is a tangent, but you really need to educate yourself on the reality of the “Black Legend.” In short, English language historical accounts in the last 500 years tended to be written by people who spoke English as their primary language. Who were the vast majority of these people? Protestants, of course. Modern scholarship is starting to cut through the bias to the reality of what middle age christendom was like and it little resembles the protestant rhetoric we all grew up with. Don’t take my word one it, do some research on the topic for yourself.

Human nature really HASN’T changed much in 2,000 years. Rulers of the past haven’t been any more eager to ‘submit’ to Rome than they are today. They found ways to do what they wanted to and employed clerical lawyers to smooth things out with the far away Vatican. The church has almost never had the power to directly impose her will on local and national governments, except in close proximity to Rome and those rulers whose claim on power was shaky and NEEDED the popular legitimacy that Rome’s approval sometimes offered.

I’m just saying - you’re more a product of the culture and history that produced you than you seem to realize. Do more homework.

 

[sedonaman]

I didn’t. …

You’re denying that you said,

… the world is growing up and is really having to drag the church kicking and screaming into the 21st century. …

…?

I implied that the 21st century has got it right. Mostly, anyway. Better than that of 2000 years ago.

That’s highly debatable. The ancients knew a lot more about life than they are given credit for. While tradition might not have gotten everything right, it at least provided a starting point for forming our beliefs. When it came to understanding complex science, it is not surprising that they got things wrong, but in understanding everyday human nature and the facts about ordinary social interaction – it is very likely that they would not, in general, get things wrong. But the “rational” default position of the 21st century mind is that authority and tradition are always wrong. This is the result of a massive over-generalization of a handful of cases where they turned out to be mistaken.

When it comes to morals, there are a few factors. … The golden rule is also good enough to decide what is morally neutral/good and what is wrong - we can safely assume that the way we treat others is the way others would like to be treated.

May I point out that the Golden Rule is not a product of 21st, or even 20th, century thought? See The Code of Hammurabi, (1780 BC) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule#Ancient_Babylon.

 

[Regular_Atheist]

That’s highly debatable. The ancients knew a lot more about life than they are given credit for. While tradition might not have gotten everything right, it at least provided a starting point for forming our beliefs. When it came to understanding complex science, it is not surprising that they got things wrong, but in understanding everyday human nature and the facts about ordinary social interaction – it is very likely that they would not, in general, get things wrong. But the “rational” default position of the 21st century mind is that authority and tradition are always wrong. This is the result of a massive over-generalization of a handful of cases where they turned out to be mistaken.

I’m not necessarily claiming that the ancients were stupid or immoral. I certainly wouldn’t agree with lots of teachings of, say, the Torah, but I know there were many ancients who got things right. And what you said about people neglecting the teachings of those in ancient times is wrong. However, what the ancients did should really be irrelevant. We should decide for ourselves.

May I point out that the Golden Rule is not a product of 21st, or even 20th, century thought? See The Code of Hammurabi, (1780 BC) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule#Ancient_Babylon.

I know that. What I oppose is blindly accepting the morality of the ancients. I don’t think we need the Bible to be moral. I’d say we can decide for ourselves.

 

[Regular_Atheist]

This is a tangent, but you really need to educate yourself on the reality of the “Black Legend.” In short, English language historical accounts in the last 500 years tended to be written by people who spoke English as their primary language. Who were the vast majority of these people? Protestants, of course. Modern scholarship is starting to cut through the bias to the reality of what middle age christendom was like and it little resembles the protestant rhetoric we all grew up with. Don’t take my word one it, do some research on the topic for yourself.

Human nature really HASN’T changed much in 2,000 years. Rulers of the past haven’t been any more eager to ‘submit’ to Rome than they are today. They found ways to do what they wanted to and employed clerical lawyers to smooth things out with the far away Vatican. The church has almost never had the power to directly impose her will on local and national governments, except in close proximity to Rome and those rulers whose claim on power was shaky and NEEDED the popular legitimacy that Rome’s approval sometimes offered.

I’m just saying - you’re more a product of the culture and history that produced you than you seem to realize. Do more homework.

Possibly, but I would have thought that many Catholics would have spoken English, too. Catholicism was a strong belief in Great Britain and Germany and what not during the 16th century, so it was quite wide-spread. And, as I mentioned, many of the monarchs of the Tudor reign in England were Catholic, so even if you’re going to argue that the Catholic church wasn’t as powerful as is claimed it was still fairly powerful.

Anyway, the Catholic church has never received the criticism it is now days, with more people becoming atheist and other scientific theories such as evolution somewhat reducing the need for religion. You claim that many people have doubted and turned against the church before, but not quite like this.

 

[CopticChristian]

I’m not necessarily claiming that the ancients were stupid or immoral. I certainly wouldn’t agree with lots of teachings of, say, the Torah, but I know there were many ancients who got things right. And what you said about people neglecting the teachings of those in ancient times is wrong. However, what the ancients did should really be irrelevant. We should decide for ourselves.

I know that. What I oppose is blindly accepting the morality of the ancients. I don’t think we need the Bible to be moral. I’d say we can decide for ourselves.

Regular,

What you are denying is a central tenet of General Semantics. Humans do what is called “time binding” or learning from the past and bringing it forward…

I suggest you go catch some Fugu and make some sushi out of it and decide for yourself how it tastes…

Go out and pick some mushrooms of the variety…Amanita phalloides & Galerina autumnalis and since you will decide for yourself as opposed to listening or paying attention to any one else that has eaten them…

Tell me how the meal was…OK…

 

[TimothyH]

News like this in the original post are driven by press releases which are fax blasted by publicists and public relations firms. Anyone can hire a publicist to send out a few fax-blast press releases to a list of news organizations in the hopes that the story gets picked up and develops “Legs.”

The organization making all of the noise is Franciscan Gay Alumni & Allies. Their website is very basic and refers visitors to a facebook page. The organization is more than likely a guy with a laptop in his spare time who started a facebook page and had a bunch of people “Friend” him.

The whole thing is a complete non-event.

-Tim-

 

[sedonaman]

… What I oppose is blindly accepting the morality of the ancients.

Did I say that? No. I said we should use it as a starting point, for we must have a starting point, and there is no other.

I don’t think we need the Bible to be moral. I’d say we can decide for ourselves.

Oh, yeah? Guess what. We are already on our way. The following is an excerpt from an exchange between author Lawrence Auster (“LA”) and poster “Mark D.” regarding an article, “The Death of British Civilization” city-journal.org/html/16_2_oh_to_be.html , by Theodore Dalrymple who observed that the most trivial violation of “political correctness” called down the greatest and most immediate response by British law enforcement, while the most egregious violent crimes went ignored:

Mark D.:

Coined by Samuel Francis, anarcho-tyranny is the systematic refusal to enforce the law in the most serious and essential matters, such as the protection of citizens from physical violence, combined with the assiduous enforcement of intrusive regulations in the most trivial and specious matters, such as the policing of people’s thoughts and feelings about minorities [hence, “tolerance über alles”].

…grounded in liberal anthropology, anarcho-tyranny is perfectly consistent, and in fact required.

Liberal anthropology is derived from Nietzsche: it affirms the sovereignty of the individual will, that the individual human will is the highest and best value, and asserts that the individual will is the arbiter of all value. Within society, all individual human wills are considered of equal value, validity, and worth; and there is no principle [e.g., God] by which to discern among them. Society is then a contest of a will to power, of asserting one’s preferences over those of others.

On the “anarcho” side this translates into affirmation of the individual human will over such traditional values as private property, public order, and even human life. If a crime of violence is committed, a conviction may be sustained, but a long incarceration is viewed with suspicion, as the imposition of a collective will over and above the highest good – the individual will that committed the crime. It is not legitimate within a liberal community to assert the communal will over against an individual human will (unless, of course, that individual human will contests the über principle of liberalism itself). [This is why we get cases like a judge sentencing the man in New Hampshire who molested a little girl for five years to only six months in jail.]

On the “tyranny” side, it is obvious that the preferences of individual human wills are sacrosanct, such as sexual orientation, lifestyle, dissent, and so forth. Any speech, thought, or action that threatens a protected preference is therefore punished with the utmost severity as a direct threat to the ultimate good – the individual human will (which is above critique). And because the individual human will is the source of all goodness, it cannot be relativized by any “status,” particularly status within a religious or ethnic minority. Those wills in the majority therefore must be restrained, and those wills in the minority must be protected, so that a principle of absolute equality is maintained. In fact, within a liberal society, the fiction is maintained that there is no majority at all; and if a majority is invoked, this claim is condemned, marginalized, or ignored. Liberal communities have no legitimate majorities. Liberal communities are merely a collection of individual human wills.

In liberal society, human life is not sacrosanct; the human will is sacrosanct. Abortion policy is the perfect expression of this principle.

LA replies:

Very interesting. Human life is something “outside” the self, a “transcendent,” as it were. Since only the immanent self and its desires have value, without reference to anything outside the self, life does not have value.

Also, Mark D. said: “Liberal communities have no legitimate majorities. Liberal communities are merely a collection of individual human wills.” … this means that “in liberal societies, two principles we take for granted no longer apply: (1) consent of the governed, and (2) rule by majority.

…Since only the individual and his will matter, and all individual wills are of equal value, no majority of individual wills can be allowed to force its will on any minority of individual wills [hence the constant harping by liberals that “you can’t force your beliefs on me”]. Therefore the society cannot be ruled on the basis of the consent of the majority, also known as the consent of the governed. The society must be run by a non-elected instrumentality [e.g., the courts] that is independent of the governed, in order to protect the equality of all individual wills. [Emphasis added]

Is this what you want?

 

[Regular_Atheist]

Regular,

What you are denying is a central tenet of General Semantics. Humans do what is called “time binding” or learning from the past and bringing it forward…

I suggest you go catch some Fugu and make some sushi out of it and decide for yourself how it tastes…

Go out and pick some mushrooms of the variety…Amanita phalloides & Galerina autumnalis and since you will decide for yourself as opposed to listening or paying attention to any one else that has eaten them…

Tell me how the meal was…OK…

What are you on about? Coptic, you do make me laugh.

I can learn from the past, certainly, but I can also learn from the mistakes of the past. Just because the ancients stated something doesn’t make it true. Not everything in the Bible is true, buddy. Go read Genesis.

 

[Regular_Atheist]

Is this what you want?

Nope. Obviously not. Not at all. I’m not entirely sure I trust it.

You seem to believe that there are two ways to live: accept the Bible, or be a god-hating-political-correctness-loving-liberal. This isn’t true. I know plenty of people who dislike political correctness, deny global warming, don’t like homosexuality, but are atheist or at least aren’t Christian.

 

[manualman]

Possibly, but I would have thought that many Catholics would have spoken English, too. Catholicism was a strong belief in Great Britain and Germany and what not during the 16th century, so it was quite wide-spread. And, as I mentioned, many of the monarchs of the Tudor reign in England were Catholic, so even if you’re going to argue that the Catholic church wasn’t as powerful as is claimed it was still fairly powerful.

Anyway, the Catholic church has never received the criticism it is now days, with more people becoming atheist and other scientific theories such as evolution somewhat reducing the need for religion. You claim that many people have doubted and turned against the church before, but not quite like this.

Read any English language historical accounts written in the 15th century lately? Me either. Almost no historians have either. Widespread scholarship wasn’t particularly feasible before the printing press, so there really is very little English language historical scholarship that predates the Black Legend.

“Turning against” the church takes many different forms. I’ll certainly agree that the last two centuries are unprecedented for the number of explicitly atheist authors and influenctial thinkers. But before it was ‘socially respectable’ to disbelieve, just as many people as today did what they pleased, even if they paid lip service to christianity or another religion.

I think you’ll find as your life goes on that science is a poor replacement for religious beliefs. I’m an engineer, so I’m rather familiar with how great a tool science is for answering “what, where, when, how” questions. But if provides only the flimsiest excuse of answers for questions involving “who and why” questions. Funny thing is that those questions and answers matter a LOT more in the long run than the questions science is good at answering.

DO look into what modern secular history experts are recently publishing about the medieval period and middle ages. Most of what was in our history books as kids was a gross perversion of objective history.

 

[CopticChristian]

What are you on about? Coptic, you do make me laugh.

I can learn from the past, certainly, but I can also learn from the mistakes of the past. Just because the ancients stated something doesn’t make it true. Not everything in the Bible is true, buddy. Go read Genesis.

Regular,

I don’t believe in the Bible alone. That is what Protestants do.

 

[CopticChristian]

Possibly, but I would have thought that many Catholics would have spoken English, too. Catholicism was a strong belief in Great Britain and Germany and what not during the 16th century, so it was quite wide-spread. And, as I mentioned, many of the monarchs of the Tudor reign in England were Catholic, so even if you’re going to argue that the Catholic church wasn’t as powerful as is claimed it was still fairly powerful.

Anyway, the Catholic church has never received the criticism it is now days, with more people becoming atheist and other scientific theories such as evolution somewhat reducing the need for religion. You claim that many people have doubted and turned against the church before, but not quite like this.

Regular,

You may want to study the history of the Church and see that it has been criticized over and over…take a look at the so called “Reformation”…one big criticism and the Church continues to grow so that in the USA Protestants are now almost less than 50% and the Church gets bigger and bigger and bigger…and grows and grows…

Criticism is part of Church History…

 

[Dale_M]

Here are your examples. WARNING - some material is a bit graphic and/or disturbing.

Ed, thank you for taking the time to locate those studies. I have to admit, I am surprised that the term “deviant” is used in serious academic research.

 

[Joe_5859]

The whole thing is a complete non-event.

And yet the conversation continues ever onward…

In the CNA article, FUS explains that the course uses the same textbook as a dozen other secular schools and the course description is simply culled from the chapter titles.

Move along, nothing to see here. npatrol:

 

[sedonaman]

Nope. Obviously not. Not at all. I’m not entirely sure I trust it.

Trust what?

You seem to believe that there are two ways to live: accept the Bible, or be a god-hating-political-correctness-loving-liberal. This isn’t true. I know plenty of people who dislike political correctness, deny global warming, don’t like homosexuality, but are atheist or at least aren’t Christian.

You seem to think that because you know some nice atheists/non-religious that atheism/non-religious must be good.

Why don’t the ideas of good atheists ever translate into good government? Why is it always the bad ones? We have at least one data point [the U.S.] where religious ideas translated into government recognition of God-given individual rights, rights I might add that atheists only too quickly claimed.