unapologetic

Unseen wrote:
When you think like that, it helps to explain Russia’s behavior.

Since when did torturing and raping civilians become a reasonable response?  Putin is a humiliated bully.

PopeBeanie wrote:
morality without religion

As far as I know, the fairness that has been observed among animals is self-directed – “that is unfair to me” – rather than other-directed – “that is unfair to you” as we see in humans.  I think this is because humans are so much more interdependent, so they care about how their cooperative partners are doing.

PopeBeanie wrote:
“reciprocity”

According to Frans de Waal, animals have reciprocity, in the form of long-term, what he calls “buddy” reciprocity, whereby two friends will do each other favours on a long term basis without keeping strict account.  It’s more a case of attitudinal reciprocity – “If you’re generous, I’ll be generous too” rather than…[Read more]

Autumn wrote:
With regard to inmates specifically, concerns about disingenuous claims regarding gender identity could warrant a policy specific to the situation. While such a move would likely be challenged in a court of law, applying standards such as a documented history of treatment for gender dysphoria is not intrinsically discriminatory for…

[Read more]

_Robert_ wrote:
I don’t see any gender as being morally superior.

It’s not possible to compare which is “superior” to the other.  There are broad differences, that’s all.

I can see both sides of the argument, of women vs. trans women over traditionally cisgendered female safe spaces.  I assume that 1) trans women need domestic violence refuges just as much as cisgendered women; 2) trans people have a need like everyone else to be considered on equal terms.

However this doesn’t factor in the enormously predatory…[Read more]

Immanuel Kant apparently said that masturbation is wrong but he didn’t know why.  Probably because it’s sexual behaviour outside of the male-female pair bond.

Masturbation is in some ways a worse vice than the horror of murdering oneself, and “debases [the masturbator] below the beasts”. Kant writes:

But it is not so easy to produce a rational…

[Read more]

Autumn wrote:
it doesn’t offer up much explanation of why the Abrahamic faiths became such hardliners on the issue in itself.

There must be some reasons why the Abrahamic faiths condemn homosexuality so heavily, when it is alive and well “in the wild”.  For example, chimpanzees and bonobos often engage in same-sex activity.

I think it’s a co…[Read more]

Autumn wrote:
I agree with your earlier statement that misogyny is a significant factor in present-day homophobia. Perceivedly ‘effeminate’ behaviour in men is maligned, and women’s sexuality is shuffled off into the margins as a possible holdover from women being treated as chattel throughout parts of our history.

It just strikes me that any s…[Read more]

Autumn wrote:
Why?

You talk as if there was the Torah, then the Bible, then nothing happened or changed until the 20th century.  I’m saying that during the intervening time, religion went overboard culturally in oppressing “deviants”.

Autumn wrote:
The sanctification of marriage in our contemporary sense may be a much younger concept, perhaps half a century ago or so when requirements for clergy to officiate marriages began to appear.

How do you account for the vilification of homosexuality in the middle ages?  Between biblical times, and now, religion has taken on a life of…[Read more]