[quote]Beowolf wrote:
Western society took after during the renaissance, a time when the Church lost MASSIVE amounts of it’s influence and power. When the Church was big man on (European) Campus, we had the dark ages.
[/quote]
The reasons behind the “Fall” of Rome are many and varied - but it was not “caused” by the rise of the Church. During the so-called “Dark Ages,” it was the Church that kept civilization & learning alive.
[quote]cremaster wrote:
Oso9050 wrote:
Don’t use the Greeks as an example. People point to the Greeks quite often as an example and most of what was cultural at the time has been twisted. First off the Greek “boy love” was predominantly an Athenian practice. Athens was the largest and most powerful City-State. It was also the most decadent, fat, bloated and over-extended. Other rival states like Sparta etc were not known for such practices. Also, much of what was valued in Greek culture was forging strong relationships between adult males and young boys, similar to mentoring. Was there homosexuality and pedophilia? sure.
Didn`t Plato, in the Symposium (his book on love) argue that homosexual behavior was NOT normal?
He used the example of would a father want his own son to be in a relationship with an older man, if memory serves.[/quote]
no, not really. Plato merely makes the distinction between what we would in English call lust and love. based on socrates speech, its hard to tell what Plato really thinks about the doctrine in the previous speeches. Also, socrates flat out endures many of the things expounded in the previous speeches.
while the book is clearly written, plato is not clear on his stance about homosexuality.
[quote]Beowolf wrote:
…
Edit: Slippery slop is not evidence.[/quote]
I think it helps prevent the megasoreass.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
It may be that homosexuals are a sub-species of humanity. Or it may be simply a mental illness.[/quote]
On MRI scans, when men and women are given pheromones to smell and are not told the gender of the pheromones:
Hetero men and homosexual womens’ brains respond the same way when smelling female pheromones.
Hetero women and homosexual mens’ brains respond the same way when smelling male pheronomes.
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7358
^ An older report on the first half of the experiment.
It’s not a choice, it’s biological.
If you want to “end” homosexuality, stop creating a society where homosexuals are forced to pretend they’re straight, get married, and have children with homosexual genes.
Allowing homosexuals to be openly gay, in the long run, reduces the number of homosexuals in society.
Tolerance is the best option for both open-minded people and haters alike.
ElbowStrike
[quote]katzenjammer wrote:
Oso9050 wrote:
Don’t use the Greeks as an example. People point to the Greeks quite often as an example and most of what was cultural at the time has been twisted. First off the Greek “boy love” was predominantly an Athenian practice. Athens was the largest and most powerful City-State. It was also the most decadent, fat, bloated and over-extended. Other rival states like Sparta etc were not known for such practices. Also, much of what was valued in Greek culture was forging strong relationships between adult males and young boys, similar to mentoring. Was there homosexuality and pedophilia? sure. But it wasn’t what the system was for. We have these same issues (specifically pedophilia) today. I think the main point is that there is a difference between homosexuals who mind their own business just like anyone else, and those that are imposing a political agenda. For example, ever notice how in recent years certain scholars and others have rushed to characterize strong historical figures as gay? Alexander the Great, Queen Elizabeth II, Hannibal. The list goes on and on, it is all part of an agenda. That is what upsets most people with regards to this issue, the constant twisting of historical realities to morally qualify a desired position.
Very good post & the right distinction IMO. I’m going to have to disagree with you about the Spartans though. Homosexuality was strongly encouraged among the military class to create and reinforce bonding & loyalty.
[/quote]
nods getting spartan history from 300 is a bad idea.
actually, homosexuality was against the law in athens. the distinction wasn’t really between athens and the other city states, but rather between the rich in the greek city states and the common folk. the rich practiced “boy love”, and got away with it because they held all the power.
also, while your right to a point defending the greeks, don’t romanticize it to much… Your right in that the system was suppose to impart wisdom and mentoring to the young boys–that what they got out of the deal. BUT… the system was also for the sexual gratification of the wise old mentors… thats what they got out of the deal. so, the system was about homosexuality and pedophilia. read the symposium. its pretty graphic.
[quote]stokedporcupine wrote:
while the book is clearly written, plato is not clear on his stance about homosexuality. [/quote]
Read the Phaedrus. Love between an older man and a young man is clearly privileged, in the sense that it provides the greatest possibility for mutual discovery of truth.
But that possibility is sustained by erotic tension and yearning; satisfaction of the bodily urge dissipates its power.
[quote]ElbowStrike wrote:
On MRI scans, when men and women are given pheromones to smell and are not told the gender of the pheromones:
Hetero men and homosexual womens’ brains respond the same way when smelling female pheromones.
Hetero women and homosexual mens’ brains respond the same way when smelling male pheronomes.
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7358
^ An older report on the first half of the experiment.
It’s not a choice, it’s biological. [/quote]
As much as I hate to feed the giant troll in the room, this experiment is bogus. The day when you’ll manage to get a hetero’s penis to engorge at the sight of a guy’s butthole is when you can draw your conclusion.
All that scan has done is show that there is no physiological differences in the smell regions of the brains of homos and heteros.
[quote]If you want to “end” homosexuality, stop creating a society where homosexuals are forced to pretend they’re straight, get married, and have children with homosexual genes.
Allowing homosexuals to be openly gay, in the long run, reduces the number of homosexuals in society. [/quote]
You’re giving HH way too much credit. Despite his best efforts, he’s hardly influencing “society”. There are a lot more important factors at play here, and I’m sure most anthropologist will tell you that our behavior and societal rules are primarily dictated by nature and the environment in which we live.
A cynic would tell you that this “gay” crap could indeed be reducing the number of homosexuals: It makes killing them easier.
That one I agree with.
[quote]nephorm wrote:
stokedporcupine wrote:
while the book is clearly written, plato is not clear on his stance about homosexuality.
Read the Phaedrus. Love between an older man and a young man is clearly privileged, in the sense that it provides the greatest possibility for mutual discovery of truth.
But that possibility is sustained by erotic tension and yearning; satisfaction of the bodily urge dissipates its power.[/quote]
been awhile since i looked at the phaedrus. i’ve been killing myself doing the parmenides at the moment. ancient number theory is fun.
i just meant that plato is not clear in symposium. what you say makes sense though, given plato’s general thoughts on love.
[quote]katzenjammer wrote:
Beowolf wrote:
Western society took after during the renaissance, a time when the Church lost MASSIVE amounts of it’s influence and power. When the Church was big man on (European) Campus, we had the dark ages.
The reasons behind the “Fall” of Rome are many and varied - but it was not “caused” by the rise of the Church. During the so-called “Dark Ages,” it was the Church that kept civilization & learning alive. [/quote]
the fall of western Rome was pretty simply–they ran out of money. after ~500 ad, the eastern empire still flourished for another 1000 years, because it still had money.
also, if by church, you mean mosque, sure. most of the classical civilization and learning was totally lost to the Latin west in between the fall of the western Roman empire and the beginning of the renaissance. it was the Muslims who gathered the writings of the conquered lands (Greece, India, Egypt, etc…), translated it all into Aribic, and continued the ancient classical traditions until the Latin west drug itself out of the dark ages and started to reacquire the classic writings from the Muslims (which were now new, and improved)
sure, you had scientists and philosophers still in the west during this time, but they didn’t have access to most of the classic writings. they surely didn’t “keep civilization and learning alive”. The place were that was going on was called Baghdad–which was the center of intellectualism for almost a 1000 years.
i suppose this is another good case to put into the next addition of “lies my teacher told me”.
[quote]stokedporcupine wrote:
while the book is clearly written, plato is not clear on his stance about homosexuality. [/quote]
This is where I have a hard time with language. There are certain concepts that don’t translate.
[quote]stokedporcupine wrote:
katzenjammer wrote:
Beowolf wrote:
Western society took after during the renaissance, a time when the Church lost MASSIVE amounts of it’s influence and power. When the Church was big man on (European) Campus, we had the dark ages.
The reasons behind the “Fall” of Rome are many and varied - but it was not “caused” by the rise of the Church. During the so-called “Dark Ages,” it was the Church that kept civilization & learning alive.
the fall of western Rome was pretty simply–they ran out of money. after ~500 ad, the eastern empire still flourished for another 1000 years, because it still had money.
[/quote]
LMAO! Too bad Gibbon wasted all that time writing his 3,000 page masterpiece; Historians are still arguing over this. They should have asked you! It’s “simple” - tey just ran outta cash!
[quote]
also, if by church, you mean mosque, sure. most of the classical civilization and learning was totally lost to the Latin west in between the fall of the western Roman empire and the beginning of the renaissance. it was the Muslims who gathered the writings of the conquered lands (Greece, India, Egypt, etc…), translated it all into Aribic, and continued the ancient classical traditions until the Latin west drug itself out of the dark ages and started to reacquire the classic writings from the Muslims (which were now new, and improved)
sure, you had scientists and philosophers still in the west during this time, but they didn’t have access to most of the classic writings. they surely didn’t “keep civilization and learning alive”. The place were that was going on was called Baghdad–which was the center of intellectualism for almost a 1000 years.
i suppose this is another good case to put into the next addition of “lies my teacher told me”. [/quote]
Actually, it’s the other way around - you’ve just re-hashed the same old narrative about the Dark Ages & the Church that you were fed in school. If it works for you, and you like the PC sound of it, by all means keep repeating it…
-katz
[quote]katzenjammer wrote:
LMAO! Too bad Gibbon wasted all that time writing his 3,000 page masterpiece; Historians are still arguing over this. They should have asked you! It’s “simple” - tey just ran outta cash!
[/quote]
Fuck! I wish I hadn’t wasted my time READING it.
[quote]katzenjammer wrote:
Actually, it’s the other way around - you’ve just re-hashed the same old narrative about the Dark Ages & the Church that you were fed in school. If it works for you, and you like the PC sound of it, by all means keep repeating it…
[/quote]
Al-farabi and Maimonides were writing commentaries on Aristotle while the West was largely ignorant of the Greek manuscripts. Can you point to things occurring in a different way?
[quote]nephorm wrote:
stokedporcupine wrote:
while the book is clearly written, plato is not clear on his stance about homosexuality.
Read the Phaedrus. Love between an older man and a young man is clearly privileged, in the sense that it provides the greatest possibility for mutual discovery of truth.
But that possibility is sustained by erotic tension and yearning; satisfaction of the bodily urge dissipates its power.[/quote]
To the Greeks, the heavens were unchanging. To emulate perfection would be the ideal (such as in the Republic). Homosexuality was considered the highest form of love because it produced no change (offspring). They may also have thought that (in their way) to be the ideal man was to be asexual — if you’ve attained perfection, no need of an extensive gene pool, to deal with the chaotic changes that happen to humanity. “We’re perfect!! No need to change things!”
Its similar to cloning today: if the world wasn’t chaotic, we could simply clone the best people for dealing with an unchanging world. Nature keeps sex around to have the widest variety of genes around (chaos theory).
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
NeelyDan wrote:
…are you serious with this shit?
A few of her more delightful tidbits:
“Studies show, no society that has totally embraced homosexuality has lasted for more than, you know, a few decades…”
“I honestly think it’s the biggest threat our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam…”
I find it absolutely stunning that this individual is in the slightest position of power in the United States.
Why? She’s right on the money. Being gay is not how nature or God intended humans to be. Being gay is a mutation. A cock is NOT meant to go anywhere but into a woman for making a child. Of course, there’s nothing in the Holy Bible to prevent married people from playing around, but everything else is off limits.
Notice how America is falling down, ever since we started accepting gayness into our culture. It is unmasculine, so you get an unmasculine nation of prancing fairies.
Fucking sad end to a once great nation…
[/quote]
Yes, I do think it is an unnatural state. But how can you say that it is not one God intended? Probably to teach us tolerance, acceptance, and humility. Is God not omnipotent and everything part of the grand plan? Who do you think is reponsible if not God? The devil? If not, why does it exist if it’s not supposed to? Not just among humans but throughout the animal species.
[quote]katzenjammer wrote:
stokedporcupine wrote:
katzenjammer wrote:
Beowolf wrote:
Western society took after during the renaissance, a time when the Church lost MASSIVE amounts of it’s influence and power. When the Church was big man on (European) Campus, we had the dark ages.
The reasons behind the “Fall” of Rome are many and varied - but it was not “caused” by the rise of the Church. During the so-called “Dark Ages,” it was the Church that kept civilization & learning alive.
the fall of western Rome was pretty simply–they ran out of money. after ~500 ad, the eastern empire still flourished for another 1000 years, because it still had money.
LMAO! Too bad Gibbon wasted all that time writing his 3,000 page masterpiece; Historians are still arguing over this. They should have asked you! It’s “simple” - tey just ran outta cash!
[/quote]
rolls eyes well, that is what happened. obviously i’ve made it overly simple.
its almost like i tried to tell you that a “real number” was any number that could be expressed as the ratio of two integers. clearly in one sense what i’ve told you is true. in a technical sense though, i’m dead wrong.
but i suppose you’d also argue that the eastern empire continuing on had nothing to do with its wealth.
actually, i know this because i’ve seen a myriad of copies of the primary Arabic sources, and am in a department with the people who are actively involved in the study of ancient philosophy and science who use those primary Arabic sources.
have you ever tried to research the development and history of logic or metaphysics? the major players after the stoics and before the renaissance all have names that start with “ibn”. also, if you want to do ancient philosophy, you learn greek. if you want to do medieval, you learn Arabic. Avicenna or Farabi ring a bell? how about Ghazali, or Rushd, or Razi, Miskawayh, or Khaldun?
its just a fact that Aristotle’s works were literally lost to the latin west for almost a 1000 years, and the only work of Plato the latin west had until the renaissance was the timaeus.
also, are you going to try and tell me that algebra does not come from “al-jabr”? you ever try to do algebra with roman numerals? how about basic multiplication and division? good luck buddy.
how about the house of wisdom in Baghdad, this is a fib too?
look, i really try to be nice sometimes. but first i get called out on this site for being too academic and not understanding that i can’t apply reason to arguments about every-day topics (i guess there’s some “every-day” reasoning i don’t know about). now i get told that i don’t even know about academic things? i don’t know about one of my own fields of concentration? please.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
nephorm wrote:
stokedporcupine wrote:
while the book is clearly written, plato is not clear on his stance about homosexuality.
Read the Phaedrus. Love between an older man and a young man is clearly privileged, in the sense that it provides the greatest possibility for mutual discovery of truth.
But that possibility is sustained by erotic tension and yearning; satisfaction of the bodily urge dissipates its power.
To the Greeks, the heavens were unchanging. To emulate perfection would be the ideal (such as in the Republic). Homosexuality was considered the highest form of love because it produced no change (offspring). They may also have thought that (in their way) to be the ideal man was to be asexual — if you’ve attained perfection, no need of an extensive gene pool, to deal with the chaotic changes that happen to humanity. “We’re perfect!! No need to change things!”
Its similar to cloning today: if the world wasn’t chaotic, we could simply clone the best people for dealing with an unchanging world. Nature keeps sex around to have the widest variety of genes around (chaos theory).
[/quote]
it must be nice to roll the entire corpus of greek philosophy and science all into one and get to pick and choice which pieces you want to collect together.
[quote]stokedporcupine wrote:
look, i really try to be nice sometimes. but first i get called out on this site for being too academic and not understanding that i can’t apply reason to arguments about every-day topics (i guess there’s some “every-day” reasoning i don’t know about). now i get told that i don’t even know about academic things? i don’t know about one of my own fields of concentration? please. [/quote]
Different people giving you a hard time for different reasons. You cannot expect two different people to be consistent with each other.
[quote]Schwarzfahrer wrote:
Pete and HH, just stop.
Which studies? Which societies?
Biggest threat? So you actually believe that young people can be brainwashed or forced to appreciate man’s ass?
Schools indoctrinate homosexuality? You can argue about homosexuality, in a certain way, but there’s a big difference in teaching tolerance and converting heteros to homos. One is nigh impossible and unknown in the western world, the other is an important part of educating children.
Since you also hate muslims, HH, do you see any benefit in the concept of tolerance at all?
I already said once that I live in a district that is one of the gayest parts of Germany.
Childbirts are sky high, neighbours are friendly and the sense of community is solid.
Gays do not force their lifestyle onto others, like bigots (eg. you). And they do not, intentionally or passively, destroy out society.
If everyone was gay, the human race would cease to exist.
How foresighted of Mother Nature to not design everyone gay, huh?
[/quote]
Sorry man, it was too difficult to take that OP garbage seriously so what came out was crap.
[quote]nephorm wrote:
stokedporcupine wrote:
look, i really try to be nice sometimes. but first i get called out on this site for being too academic and not understanding that i can’t apply reason to arguments about every-day topics (i guess there’s some “every-day” reasoning i don’t know about). now i get told that i don’t even know about academic things? i don’t know about one of my own fields of concentration? please.
Different people giving you a hard time for different reasons. You cannot expect two different people to be consistent with each other.[/quote]
lol, i know. this was suppose to be a bad joke.