RadioBanter - View Single Post - Laying Waste to Frank Of Silliland's Silliness

September 13th 05, 03:23 AM

wrote:
Mike Coslo wrote:

K4YZ wrote:

wrote:

K4YZ wrote:

nobodys_old_friend wrote:

Mike Coslo wrote:

wrote:

why should polygamy be banned? why for that matter
shoudl polyandry be banned?

Let's start of with inability to support the extended family for
one.

Why would that be a concern? We don't prevent people from having
lots of kids they cannot afford.

How many families of 20 or more children do you know of in
Pennsylvania, Jim?

Many if not most families-with-children I know have all the adults
working outside the home. Having more adults available
would make things easier, not harder.

But these guys don't LET the women work...They are expected to
stay at home and multiply...Period.

The number one problem in polygamy-prone communities is abject
poverty.

But is that due to the polygamy, or due to other factors such as
rejection by the mainstream culture?

Uhhhhhhhhhh.........How many families with more than three or four
kids do you know of that "lives well", Jim?

Follow that with chronic medical problems associated with in-
breeding.

That's a problem caused by marrying too-close relatives, not
polygamy or polyandry.

Most of the polygamy colonies in Utah are fiercely close and shun
outsiders, Jim. Where's the fresh DNA come from?

The reason such arrangements are against the law is that our
society has decided to define "marriage" as one woman and one man
joined in a legally-sanctioned way, protected by the laws of the
various levels of government.

And part of the reason they have done this is to prevent
intra-family breeding.

There's nothing to prevent a multi-spouse arrangement, as long as
those involved don't demand government sanction and protection.

Common sense and the health and welfare of the children will
prevent it, Jim.

I am sure the "evil religious people" he was refring to were the
Founding Fathers who took it upon themselves to put ambiguous language
about "seperation of church and state" in the Constitution, however
liberally sprinkle "relgion" throughout the political process.

Where?

Start with your folding money.

Most of the Founders were Deists. They also cherished religious liberty
and did not want churches to be supported by tax dollars.

As well they shouldn't. However Christian principles were the
basis for most of thier beliefs and were codified into early American
law.

Who among them could have foretold the silliness
that prevails in today's "religious" pursuits?

Bingo! It is no exaggeration to note that the
biggest atheists here in
the US are almost all filled to the gills
with "Christian Values".

?? I'm not sure what you mean, Mike.

Even though a person may proclaim to be an atheist, that person was
raised in a society that is pretty much Christian, and overwhelmingly
Judeo-Christian. The atheist person is going to have most of those same
values as the rest of the society.

We all have to have some sort of values, save
for the rare and sick few.

But all value systems are not created equal.

Of course not. Now compare the other value systems to ours, and you see
why even atheists have Christian values even if they were raised in a
Christian country

And there is nothing wrong with most of those values. The ten
commandments? A lot of that is good stuff.

Sure - but a lot of that is also not necessarily only
derived from religion.

The religions were some of original social order came from.

Most of what is in the Ten Commandments can be easily
derived from a pair of questions:

"What would a society be like if everyone obeyed that rule?"

"What would a society be like if everyone disobeyed that rule?"

For example, take stealing. A society composed solely of thieves
(people who live by theft rather than production) cannot exist, because
pretty soon there will be nothing left to steal. But a society composed
of people who don't steal can prosper, because
production is the basis of wealth. Therefore stealing is
intrinsically "wrong" because it's not productive.

We better not stand too hard
on that "covet thy neighbors goods stuff, tho'.

Depends how you define "covet".

Keeping up with the Joneses kind of works that way for me.

If my neighbor has a new car, and I want one too, and I work
hard and save up to buy one, that's a good thing!

That is keeping up with the Joneses

But if my neighbor has a new car, and I want one too, and I hate
him for it, try to steal or damage it, that's a bad thing!

A redundant commandment?

And "not having any
other God before me" kind of makes it a problem to post it in
the courthouse.

Why should a courthouse, which is paid for by taxes, be a place
where the specific words of one religion are publicized to the
exclusion of others?

We agree.

I see no problem with private citizens posting their Commandments
on public property *if* other private citizens have the same right.

I want a turtle holding up the world statue! Turtles all the way down!

We are what we are, and our heritage is where it comes from.

But not just our heritage. We've gotten beyond a heritage
of some people owning other people as property. We've gotten
beyond a heritage where people of one gender can vote and
people of the other gender cannot. Etc.

There are some for whom this new state of being is a problem.

I suppose that it is a great comfort to many
people to "know" just how
things are supposed to be, and to have great faith
in that "knowing".

Of course.

But the faithful have had a long and storied
history of depriving others
of what they believe is their own faith's fundamental rights.

Every freedom carries with it at least one responsibility.
Freedom of religion can only extend to those religions that
can tolerate each other. (For example, a religion that taught
that unbelievers must be murdered cannot claim that such
behavior is protected by religious freedom. That case is
obvious but many similar cases aren't.)

Do you think that Fundies actually want freedom? Certainly for
themselves, but I wonder about others.....

- Mike KB3EIA -