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2nd February 2019, 05:33 AM | #1 |
Penultimate Amazing
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Richard Swinburne's argument that homosexuality is a disability
This argument caused a bit of a ruckus not so long ago.
Swinburne, as part of a lecture on Christian moral teaching, wonders why God prohibits homosexuality. He says:
Originally Posted by Richard Swinburne
Suppose for the moment that we would accept that this is a "disabiility", notice that a bisexual does not have this disability.. So if this was God's reason for prohibiting homosexual acts then it would imply that there is no prohibition on homosexual acts by a bisexual. I don't think that this consequence would suit him or other Christian conservatives. Come to think of it, the premise is incorrect in any case. Swinburne is assuming that having loving sex with someone requires sexual attraction both ways. Not so. You can love someone without being sexually attracted to them and you can have loving sex without being sexually attracted. Indeed there have been many lifelong committed relationships not based on sexual attraction. Granted it is not what most gays or lesbians would choose, not what most would consider a path to fulfillment, but there is no "cannot" about it, therefore not a "disability". And of course there are many happy gay and lesbian couples bringing up their happy well-adjusted children, although this is something he denies. Richard Swinburne is adamant not only that homosexuality is a disability but that it must be cured, and prevented. He makes it clear he does not mean cure in any sort of spiritual way, but in a medical way:
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So we have no indication of why he thinks that something that has been tried for centuries in most parts of the world and is the case in many countries today and has not had the effect he desires, would work. He also shows the way for the gay community to help stamp out this "disability":
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http://users.ox.ac.uk/~orie0087/pdf_...20teaching.pdf (NB, I did a quick search for a previous thread on this and could not find one. I may have missed it though, and if so, sorry for the doubling up) |
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2nd February 2019, 06:37 AM | #2 |
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I wonder what this deep thinker’s opinion is about the general acceptance of homosexuality in cultures not afflicted with the Abrahamic religions?
Seems to be carrying on the old notion that sex is for procreation... Period. I have no idea of the man’s sexuality, but all too often the most virulent anti-gay folks prove to be so themselves. |
2nd February 2019, 07:48 AM | #4 |
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2nd February 2019, 08:04 AM | #5 |
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Nothing new or insightful there. He simply posits out of thin air that the only purpose for sex, sexual behavior, or sexual attraction can be procreation. He ignores any and all evidence to the contrary from science, and even from the more enlightened religions. Then -- further misusing science -- he argues that since it runs contrary to his religious dogma, it must therefore also be a secular infirmity. His curability argument falls flat when we see that the more medical science understands homosexuality, the less willing it is to do anything about it. Even here in Utah, the blessed promised land of homophobia, the legislature is poised to actually outlaw attempts to change sexual orientation.
No, I agree with sylvan8798. There's nothing brilliant or new or profound to Swinburne. It's high time we left such pathetic homophobia on the ash heap of regrettable history, where it belongs. |
2nd February 2019, 09:01 AM | #6 |
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I'm not entirely sure why this whole thing is not simply dismissed not only as baloney. but as actual poverty of thought. Apart from everything else, including the ridiculous presumption that some god or other actually explicitly says anything about the issues at hand, it seems blindingly stupid to throw out the old and deficient argument that homosexuality is wrong because it prevents procreation when it clearly does not, and then to lump it with premarital sex and divorce, which anyone but an abject fool must realize do not.
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2nd February 2019, 09:38 AM | #7 |
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His comments suggest to me that adhering to Fundamentalism is a disability, not a crutch, but a hammer to the shins.
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2nd February 2019, 09:45 AM | #8 |
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2nd February 2019, 10:13 AM | #9 |
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2nd February 2019, 03:24 PM | #10 |
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2nd February 2019, 05:54 PM | #11 |
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I was being sarcastic there. My bad that it came across any other way.
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2nd February 2019, 06:55 PM | #12 |
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I read an interesting article recently where a pastor argued this anti homosexuality stance is actually a misinterpretation of the Bible. I will have to go through my notes and find it to link here, but he essentially said the prohibition was against temple prostitution or other practices that worshipped outside the judaic faith. I will try to find the article tomorrow.
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2nd February 2019, 07:18 PM | #13 |
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Feel the Love!
Wow another so-called Christian actually calling for the lives of certain people to be made miserable and unpleasant and of course to operate has a coercive effort to force people to conform. I strongly suspect behind his desire to create a climate of opinion in society in general that Homosexual acts and it appears orientation is wrong is the desire to criminalize such behavior and enforce compulsory "cures". But of course he dares not say so openly lest it brand him has an obvious bigot, not that he isn't an obvious bigot anyway.
But it is so interesting to read that this "Christian" has no problem in creating a hell on earth for certain people. How loving!!?? |
2nd February 2019, 07:26 PM | #14 |
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My great aunt received electroshock therapy to "cure" her of being a lesbian. Then she was forcibly married to the only man who would take her. He beat her for not being womanly enough and turned her kids against her when she finally left him.
Homosexuality is a norm expression of the human range of gender and sex expressions and trying to "cure" someone of it is just downright evil. |
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2nd February 2019, 10:06 PM | #15 |
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Now I happen to agree entirely with the above, but as a sort of thought experiment, I wonder why, even if homosexuality were considered an illness or a deviation, it should follow that such persons must be cured by or for those who have no business intruding.
If one were to step over to the slippery slope, why does the lamely brain-dead procreation argument, or the supposed need for an enforced cure, differ from, say, arm restraints to prevent masturbation, forced eugenic marriage, mandatory procreation quotas, penalties for religious nonconformity, weight loss, correction of physical characteristics deemed ugly, on and on. Even if one were to accept the first premise that homosexuality is an illness, the procreative argument and the call for a cure are, I think, dangerously stupid by themselves. Their only virtue seems to be consistency, as when you have a pile of **** you might as well pile more **** on top of it rather than waste ice cream. |
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2nd February 2019, 11:10 PM | #16 |
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My whole problem with the religious argument against homosexuality is that it's logical conclusion shouldn't be the prevention/punishment/suppression of homosexuality. It should be that if a person sins, God will take care of it. I've never understood why men have been so quick to impose God's law on others. The guy is a god. If he has problems with someone, let him deal with it.
Nothing about anybody else's sexuality is interfering with my relationship with my god.* And if it's interfering with their relationship with their god, that's their own problem. *I don't have a relationship with God. I mean, we nod when we pass each other in the hallway, but that's about it. |
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2nd February 2019, 11:15 PM | #17 |
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2nd February 2019, 11:33 PM | #18 |
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Two points, as I understand it: (1) Everyone in Sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed (good, bad, unborn) because the people TOLERATED the gay. Not everyone was gay, but they didn’t stone the gays like they were told to. Naughty, naughty. (2) obviously, if someone’s sexual interests pose a potential or real harm to others (children for example) we have an interest in protecting the vulnerable. Hey, you’d think god could have mentioned the abomination of molesting children, like in passing, whatcha think?
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4th February 2019, 08:13 AM | #19 |
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Until christian employers start letting employees call out of work gay I don't see where this is going.
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4th February 2019, 10:31 AM | #20 |
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The bible scholars i have read state the the sin was not guy-on-guy sex but rather inhospitality. When travelling through dangerous and harsh places you relied on the kindness of local people you encountered. If they raped you instead of offering you sanctuary and food, then no one would be able to travel.
That's why Lot (the only righteous man in the city) offered his daughters to the crowd. Surrendering loved family members was less of a sin than surrendering the travelling strangers. ..... As for the opening post, i'll cite the old adage When searching for a religion, know you have found the right one when God hates the same people you do. |
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4th February 2019, 10:34 AM | #21 |
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10 bucks says this guy would also somehow find a problem with gay people adopting, using surrogates, or other non-traditional means of having children.
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4th February 2019, 10:45 AM | #22 |
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4th February 2019, 10:50 AM | #23 |
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4th February 2019, 12:30 PM | #24 |
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The "appropriate" response is that god can do anything, so your wife could still get pregnant if god wanted her to. Ergo, no problemo. Ditto the sterile and post-menopausal. After all, Sarah had Isaac at 90. In a self-contradicting statement, god can't make men pregnant.
ETA: also in a self-contradictory statement, it's wrong to use birth control because god can't just work around that. No uterus = no problem. |
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4th February 2019, 12:33 PM | #25 |
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4th February 2019, 12:49 PM | #26 |
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Or, presumably,, traditional ones. Plenty of gay or bisexual people have had kids the old fashioned way, just not enjoying the initial process as much as some of us do. My ex wife came out after she had her share of kids. If you use a procreation argument, it means that a childless couple sins more greatly than, for example, a famously gay relative of my family, a minister who was expelled, as I recall, for molesting a choir boy, but was married and had two kids. His wife later said she thought there'd been something missing as the two kids were the result of two couplings. But hey, he procreated. He's all straight with god.
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5th July 2019, 10:54 AM | #27 |
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Originally Posted by Robin
Originally Posted by Swinburne
While it's true that bisexuals do not have an a contrary inclination to the extent to homosexuals; however, they still do have a contrary inclination. We can see how bisexuality would still be a disability by analogy. There is a mental disability known as "pica" where the person has a desire to eat nonfood substances (such as dirt, rocks, or some other nonfood chemical substances). It would still be a disorder whether they also had a desire to eat food substances as well. So you're simply incorrect here. You did not comprehend the argument or you're intentionally or accidentally giving an uncharitable reading of the argument. Because of that you proferred erroneus objections. For example, you state:
Originally Posted by Robin
Originally Posted by Robin
In short, Pica is a disability for similar reasons that bestiality is a disability for similar reasons that homosexuality/bisexuality is a disability. They stand or fall together=. There's absolutely no way to make sense of pica and bestiality as disabilities without also considering homosexuality/bisexuality a disability. You might think you can get around this problem by giving an account of disability which is interest-relative. But that's on its face implausible. Because it may be in the pica-afflicted person's interest to eat nonfood. Then you're forced to give an "idealized interest" account of disability such that the pica-afficlited have a disability because if their ideal interests (their interests corrected for factual errors and preference inconsistencies) would show that they really are interested in not eating nonfood substances. But then there's the problem of determining the relevant interests to be "fixed up." Maybe the pica-afficlited ideal desires are to nonfood substances because they desire the sickly feeling they get as a result. Then you might say if they were truly "fixed up" then they wouldn't desire that sickly feeling. By what criterion do we determine which desires are the relevant desires? We simply can't give an interest-relative account of disability. The simplest explanation for what makes for a disability is that it's objectively bad for the person who has the condition. And by objectively bad I mean a badness for the person that is not relative to their interests but relative to their nature. It doesn't matter if somemone prefers being deaf, deafness is a disability because we known it's human nature to be able to hear. A cat with three-legs has a disability because we know the cats nature is to have four legs. It doesn't matter what we think or prefer or what the cat thinks or prefers. I also notice in your profile description you state that you're a "philosopher." I am curious if you are a philosopher in a professional capacity. I wonder this because you seem to either accidentally or intentionally give an uncharitable interpretation of the arguments and that seems like a very amateur mistake which suggests to me that you're not a philosopher in any professional capacity. |
5th July 2019, 11:22 AM | #28 |
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5th July 2019, 11:43 AM | #29 |
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Pica actually causes quantifiable harm, though, while there is no reason to believe that the harm of homosexuality is anything but social. And society can adapt without requiring homosexuals to adapt. A person who refrains from pica refrains from eating poison and foregoes a momentary pleasure for his own long term benefit. Not everyone wants kids, and those who do find ways to have them. The idea that it is a disability not to want both a rewarding relationship and kids at the same time is a social construct that, among other things, suggests that childless heterosexuals or those who choose not to marry at all are more disabled than homosexuals who have children and raise them in a loving household, as many do. If you adopt as a premise that it's a handicap not to have both love and sex at the same time, you would be disqualifying a large number of heterosexual relationships throughout history. The notion that love and sex are necessarily companions is a relatively recent notion in many societies. Procreation has had more to do with property than with romance throughout a good part of Western history. The "contrary indication" of a nobleman to make love to a courtesan rather than to his wife really differs in no material way from the contrary indication of a homosexual to make love with some person other than her or his spouse. The whole premise is based on a presumption that homosexuality is, in some way, inherently harmful or unnatural and thus needs to be deterred. Whether we can deter it or not is an empty argument. Once upon a time left-handedness was deterred with considerable success, but that does not mean that the practice was good. It was quite the opposite: it was wrong and stupid.
If we presume that what is "natural" is what nature actually does, the argument falls apart. To compare orientation with the natural handicap of missing a leg or a sense is artificial, depending on an arbitrary and religiously loaded presumption of what "nature" requires. In nature, not only in human beings but in other animals as well, homosexuality exists. It's a handicap only insofar as a species is harmed by a dearth of breeders, which is not a problem for humanity. It may be true that you can't reliabley give an "interest related" account of disability, but the only substitute I see is a made up one instead. If you can't point to interest or result as a reason for something, then you're left with an abstract idea, and all you need for a complete disagreement is to say "I disagree." Which I do. |
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5th July 2019, 12:17 PM | #30 |
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5th July 2019, 01:04 PM | #31 |
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Originally Posted by bruto
What's bad about homosexuality is that it's a contrary inclination against entering into a loving with a person that you can have a child with. Having a child consists in bringing up a new person who shares you and your loved ones good and bad biology as well as raising them with you and your loved ones values. This is a good thing and it's bad for a homosexual to have the condition of homosexuality because it's a contrary inclination. That's not a harm that is caused by societal oppression or marginalization.
Originally Posted by bruto
And I didn't say anything about someone being "more disabled" than someone else. Childless heterosexuals are obviously not disabled. They would be disabled if they have absolutely no desire to have sex or have no desire to have sex with a member of a class of persons they can't in principle mate with. That would be a disability. Normal, healthy people with appropriate orientations can make conscious decisions to not have children. I also never said homosexuals can't raise children in a loving household. There are plenty of disabled parents that have adopted and are raising children.
Originally Posted by bruto
Originally Posted by bruto
The presumption is not what you seem to think it is. The presumption is that it's good to enter into a loving union with a person whom you can mate with and bring children up with. And if that's good then if someone has a contrary inclination to that, whether biological, psychological or socialized into them then it's bad for them to be in that condition. It's bad for them, it can in principle be cured or treated by medicinal means, and it is not the result of socioeconomic oppression or marginalization. It meets all the criteria for a disability.
Originally Posted by bruto
Originally Posted by bruto
So the argument in syllogistic form is like so: If homosexuality is not a disability, then neither is pica (and other paradigm examples of disability) pica (and other piaradigm examples of disability) are disabilities Therefore, homosexuality is a disability That's a valid modus tollens and I've substantiated each premise already and I've explained why your objections fail. |
5th July 2019, 02:19 PM | #32 |
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Yes. If a harm is not quantifiable how is it defined, except by arbitrarily labeling it a harm, or by trusting some spiritual or religious definition that defines harm?
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The homosexual cannot enter into a loving union with a person they can in principle mate with because the object of their sexual desire is with a member of a class they cannot in principle do that with. So it's in that way that it differs.[/quote] That works only if one presumes that principle has some power over reality. A heterosexual union in which one or more of the partners is known to be unable to have children is fertile only in a principle that is unrealistic and arbitrary.
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I would question whether there is really any useful parallel between homosexuality and pica. Aside from the fact that practice of pica can and often does result in actual physical harm and death (remembering that one of the principal forms it takes is a taste for lead paint), the parallel depends on the presumption, quite presumptuous indeed, that a person suffering from pica does not fully enjoy anything but non-food ingestion. I see no evidence of that. A person with pica who does not practice it might, as far as I know, and at least as far as you have demonstrated, love to eat eggs or ice cream, maybe even more than he likes to eat paint. A person who lives in a satisfying and loving heterosexual relationship might well occasionally wish to perform lewd and inappropriate acts, which for moral or practical reasons he does not. The whole argument hinges on a shallow and tendentious presumption of what constitutes sufficient enjoyment, and what role a certain species of enjoyment plays in a person's life and fulfilment and the usefulness of his relationships. |
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7th July 2019, 05:19 AM | #33 |
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Originally Posted by semantical
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7th July 2019, 05:48 AM | #34 |
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7th July 2019, 08:15 AM | #35 |
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The analogy between eating and human relationships is also a non-starter.
It implies that the only 'sustenance' available from human relationships is the production of offspring. As though our relationships came down to bonking, making babies and nothing else. It leaves out all the value, meaning, joy and fulfilment that can be derived from loving and being loved. But in the end it is not my burden to refute his premises, but his to support them. I only point out what an uphill task that will be. |
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