Forgive me. I continually toil under the false impression, no doubt instilled in me at a young age by watching scripted drama, that people are at all reasonable in their capacity to accept criticism, and will admit when they are wrong. No doubt if I had wanted to have any chance of advancing your thinking I should have catered to your feeble ego by saying only nice and flattering things to you, or by being perfectly neutral, despite the fact that either would have been a deceitful show of respect on my part toward someone who clearly has little or no grasp of the subjects he engages.
In the court of ideas, people who say reasonable things get treated reasonably. People who may not know what is reasonable but at least put forth an honest interest or curiosity, get treated reasonably. Tinpots and mooks, however, deserve nothing but a great big rebuke. This is all some big academic abstraction to you. You talk about sex and all these other things without
any regard for the practical consequences of your ill-considered beliefs, and tribalistic contempt (or sheer bewilderment!) toward anything that does not bend to your view of the world. The only thing more unsettling than to imagine you as an inexperienced youngling is to imagine that you have actually been in a relationship already. It would be like putting a dog in charge of a nuclear reactor.
I agree with you as well, Faustwolf, but first, I would like to distinguish the difference between pleasure and happiness. Sex can bring pleasure (little doubt there), but can it bring happiness on such an equal basis as well?
Let's just cut out the passive-aggressive crap and get to where you're going with that line of interrogation. You think sex is something which it is not. You get your ideas either from abject Christian morality or else from society's cultural obsession with elevating sex into all manner of things it isn't. There. Agree to disagree. End of conversation. Anything more on the matter would be a waste of time, until and unless you ever realize that sex is not some glorious festival with trumpets and angels that exceeds in profundity and significance all baser human instincts but that ultimate expression of love, without which you feel sex is inappropriate or, worse, defiled. Hah! That'll be the day. Maybe someone more patient than I will give you a nice bop on the head to clear your mind of this Victorian rubbish.
You also presume that the act of premarital sex is without consequence. Partners who have different values, education, previous relationships, and family of origins (intact or broken) have greater risk of breaking up. Multiple failures results in an inability to maintain commitment - the most important part of a loving relationship.
The biggest reason that relationships don't last is that one or more of the participants is a mook, or is at best naive and grossly inexperienced (an excuse that wears thin after the first couple of relationships). Your laughable attempt to pin premarital sex to broken relationships is so off-base that it doesn't even show up on the wall on which the dartboard hangs. Let's face it: Most people are losers, and most relationships aren't healthy. They
ought to break up once one of the parties realizes and accepts that. The fact that traditional lifelong marriage declined in popularity once divorce became more socially permissible and females gained greater economic independence and legal protections should tell you a thing or two about your precious "sanctity of marriage," because by your current logic the liberation of females is detrimental to society.
You don't realize how sexist your views on sex are. You don't realize how controlling it is for you to try and set sex aside as something that should only rightly be accessed on very special occasions or in a very narrow context. You have no recognition whatsoever of the ramifications of these ideas which to you are bubblegum and candy canes of ideological self-indulgence. And, worse, you're not the one who gets the tooth decay and the tummy ache. Instead these punishments are passed along to society at large.
I think everyone should have as much sex as they want with as many people as are willing, just to catch in the craw of puritans like yourself. There's nothing more infuriating to a religious punk as to see society casting off the yoke of religious oppression, only to not collapse, not implode, and in fact chug happily along even better than before.
Most young people think that love is just a strong feeling one has toward another person. However, the elated, "high" feeling we get when we "fall in love" is really infatuation, be it biological or otherwise. This kind of "love" is something that is typically short-lived, and unless replaced by true love, results in broken relationships. Those who think the infatuation phase of a relationship will last for a lifetime are setting themselves up for disappointment and failure.
See...here's a prime example of you not thinking for yourself and instead just passing along what you've heard from others. At the risk of being a broken record, you are so utterly clueless that it boggles the mind. I don't even know where to begin to tell you just how badly you've gotten it wrong. You have no basis for appreciating it. This is all so simplistic in your mind...so easy, so straightforward and pithy and matter-of-fact, when
in fact the
truth of the matter is
twenty thousand leagues over
the top of your head.
I wonder if you will
ever realize just how naive you are, even on this one point.
Life happens, and people make mistakes that hurt others. The ability to forgive and rebuild trust is required for any marriage relationship to succeed. Those who are used to moving on to the next relationship at the first sign of trouble will not make a good marriage partner, which is why living together leads to bad habits.
I wonder how much we could mine this passage for in a game of "count the logical fallacies"...
Lord J, is it just me, or do you see every demonstration of my beliefs that doesn't fit in harmony with your beliefs an open door to insult me and my beliefs with style over substance?
Kind sir...let me try and explain this to you: There is not a person on this Compendium who "agrees" with me. I am enough of my own Josh that even my closest philosophical allies are not in agreement with me on most issues except in the broadest sense of ideological orientation and perhaps in sharing some specific concepts to frame the questions. Agreement is a continuum, and not a very important one at that. It is not disagreement with me that opens the floodgates of condemnation.
It is ideas themselves. Yours suck. I don't just mean that they're childish or foolish. I mean they're genuinely stupid...the kind of stupid you have to work at to accomplish. You go about this all wrong, by being uncritical of your own positions and reacting poorly to valid criticism from others. You give people of conviction a bad name!
I don't want to give you a hard time. But when you bring a steaming bowl of shit to the table, I lose my appetite. What do you want me to do? Hrm? Leave well enough alone and let you eat whatever you want? No way.
If you want to play the game of ideas, you have to accept the possibility of criticism. Let's go through the rest of your reply to me, and see what we find. I will strike out all the irrelevant portions.
The most intimate act between two people is the sharing of passions. I've had conservations like that, and I've also had sex, and the comparison is not even close. Yet we're all conditioned to think that sex is the center of human existence. It's not. Not by any measure--even the animal--is it the center of our existence. In the wider view of the human being, sex is only one facet among dozens.
You presume that my belief labeled sex as the center of human existence, but since we decided to open that can of worms...
Reproduction is the very tenet of the perpetuation of any one species. This is not to say that it's the highest need in any and all relationships. As human beings, we are more capable than any animal (next to dolphins and bonobos) to make an informed decision about whether to engage in sexual acts. I hope you're not implying that such decisions (as far as you're concerned) are to be made lightly or with indifference, because it's that train of thought that results in broken relationships and divorce.
Young fool. I explicitly wrote my comments to you--
explicitly--with a careful choice of wording so as
not to "presume that {your} belief labeled sex as the center of human existence." If you go back and read my comment, you'll see that, when referring specifically to you, I always used your own phrases, often in their original quotation mark wrappers. It was only when I spoke of sociological causation that I allowed the phrasing "we're all conditioned." And we are...you and even me! We're all conditioned to think that sex is at the center of everything. As I was writing my remarks, I paused to anticipate the potential reply of "So, Josh, if sharing passion is more intimate than sex, how come you'd share the former so much more readily than the latter?" And of course the answer is that I'm conditioned to think of sex as being deeply private, which is a concept connected with intimacy.
But I didn't do the very thing you just accused me of. I didn't presume to know your belief on that point. I even went out of my way to avoid the appearance of it.
As for "opening that can of worms," you really walked into an easy trap. Not only have you fallen on your face accusing me of something I specifically avoided, but you raised the very point which I diverted our conversation away from. You'll notice my interjection about that "animal" part of sex. You see, as I was writing my comment, I thought to myself--and this is where we differ; I
think about what I write--that, while the propagation of the species is crucial to our existence, the actual process of sexual intercourse is only one tiny portion of the overall reproduction and rearing of new life. It is a male-centric, puritanical view which forces male ownership not only on the next generation but on females, by downplaying everything about raising a child that comes after having sex. If you're going to open that can of worms--which you did--then you would
still have to admit that sex isn't at the center of everything, you incredible mook, because sex is but one player in an ensemble cast that also includes gestation, childbirth, nursing, providing for, protecting, playing with, and parenting.
You walked right into my trap, but, because this is not scripted drama and not the physical world, you don't even realize it. Surely you can sympathize with my plight! I'm the scheming schemer who has laid an excellent scheme indeed, only to have the bumbling village idiot fall into my web without his ever realizing how dismayed he should be.
Be dismayed, for the love of Christ Jesus!Oh, I hate mooks!!So wrong about everything, yet so oblivious...you should all collapse into black holes. I can't believe the universe has a stable equation for you! Proof if ever there was of the existence of No Deity Whatsoever! To quote Captain Picard: The universe is not so badly designed! Thus it must not be designed at all.
You presume that my belief enveloped those who are traumatized and those who are asexual. It didn't.
So you cherry-pick the areas where your arguments will operate. Anything inconvenient to you, you ignore! How wonderful for you. Which gets you a failing grade for the course, I might add. No philosophy of any worth can be suspended when it is exposed to stress.
Also, you telling me that I'm wrong from personal experience is like me telling you that you're wrong because I possess more knowledge about it than you do.
Personal experience is certainly not the
only avenue to comprehension. Likewise, personal experience is no guarantee of comprehension. Nevertheless, in certain cases it makes for the shortest line between assertion and proof. But I would have argued the same thing without having any personal experience in the matter. Your complaint is a diversion, and is declared invalid.
Your argument is based in the premise that all instances of sexual intercourse results in pregnancy (which it doesn't).
How on Earth are you going to defend that? Nowhere is that presumption made, nor is it operative or relevant. Pregnancy does not result from all acts of sex. Do you think I didn't know that? Where are you going with this? Would it make a difference if the number were 2 percent or 12 percent or 44 percent or 96 percent? Would you be in favor of abortion and birth control to a degree commensurate with the likelihood of a sex act resulting in pregnancy? What preposterous nonsense, made all the more ridiculous because it has no bearing on our discussion.
And "the same people" you refer to simply care about the well-being of those they care about. How loving would it be for me if I just smiled to my friend and said, "Well, best of luck in your relationship. If you get her pregnant, don't worry about it! You two can always get an abortion and try again. Heck, go ahead and buy all the condoms and rings and pills you want! I don't give a crap."
How loving it would be, indeed. But since you phrased this hypothetical sarcastically, I can see how very much farther you have to evolve as a person before you are capable of this simple act of maturity and goodwill.
Why do people keep buying into this outdated and discredited credo of puritanism, when there is so much evidence to the contrary? Religion has a lot to say about sex, all of it wrong, most of it meant to repress. I'll give you that sexuality is a key component of one's identity; that's not even a concession on my part: That's something I willingly affirm. But to elevate sex up to "the most intimate act"? That's really just code for the repression of females and the control of society in general.
More Straw Men. I can easily shoot back and say that there's evidence contrary to your views, but you would simply assign them to the "outdated and discredited credo of puritanism" you spoke of.
Well, if you've got a
newfangled and discredited credo of puritanism, I'll note that accordingly. But mostly you don't rouse yourself to the level of original thought. Your stuff is all old-school.
You also like to speak in absolutes when it comes to matters of religious beliefs, and to top it all off, you manage to tie together anything related to sexual intimacy that is held in the highest regard to be another demonstration of sexism and social control. How shallow.
This will come as a shock to you, but there is also the possibility that I'm right, that I know more about this subject than you do, and that you're wrong without realizing it.
I mentioned earlier that you give people of conviction a bad name. This is because it's very important for a person to be able to speak in the absolute when it is necessary to protect or advance the interests of society. Yet the absolute is also a favorite haunt of every two-bit believer of This, That, or The Other. You and I differ in the quality of our comprehension as compared to the rigidity of our statements. We're very much alike in both being of a strong opinion on this subject. I wouldn't have swooped down and assailed you if your attitudes on sex were not a serious threat to society.
People need to understand--and if not you, then others reading--that the idea that "sex is sacred," and all variations on that claim, are in fact the product of age-old religious measure of control and subjugation. Sex may very well be The Bee's Knees to some people, but, by placing it as this spiffy, pure thing that can so easily be sullied to the detriment of all individuals involved and even to society at large, you corrupt what sexuality really is, and what sex can be all about. In so doing, you reaffirm the same ideas which for thousands of years have been used to dominate the lives of females and keep the masses docile and obedient. And you don't realize it.
The risk we face in this day and age is that, even as organized Christianity fades, the true depths of Christian evil in our society linger on, and are reborn in new, Christianless skins, to be heralded by the next generation as something totally new and original...a way forward...a secret path to the future. But it's not. It's the villains of history preying on the ignorant.
Sex is not worth more or less than a person decides for it to be. You don't know better than that. You should stop believing that you do.
And you say "ignorant" more than a cow says "moo".
Ignorance is evil, Genesis. I don't mean it's
an evil. I mean that it
is evil. Ignorance, and the willful embrace of ignorance, are the root of all evil. I say ignorant as easily as I would say "imperfect," or "not-a-knower-of-everything," because we are. We're all ignorant. It's just that some of us are more ignorant than others, and are more willful in our ignorance than others.
I'm not accusing you of the worser evil, willful ignorance, because even though I suspect it I can't know for sure that you're not just some unfortunate fool who got raised in a dogmatic environment, or that you don't have some mental predisposition to seeing the world purely in those stark absolutes of which you just accused me, and thus are not a victim rather than a villain. However, where ignorance itself is concerned, you've got bags to spare on this subject, my friend...bags and bags of it. And the only way you'll ever learn is to stop thinking you're such hot shit and listen to what other people tell you, and think about it for yourself, critically, and thoroughly, and thoughtfully, always.
If you don't like hearing it from me, who mixes points of substance with assessments of character, then go get it from someone else. But don't come here expecting to be given a free pass. Ideas are not toys; they're dangerous; and you're playing with them so foolishly. Here, the Compendium is a small beacon of light. There are many communities where reason is so badly repressed that ignorance flaunts itself without any risk at all. But not here. So long as people say stupid shit here, I hope there will be someone to correct them.
I've still yet to hear from you what you find to be "the ultimate expression of love," if you even believe there is such a thing, because I certainly believe there is.
I think it would be too ironic to end this with a discussion of my thoughts on "the ultimate expression of love"--your phrasing, not mine. Ask me another time.
