On 2014-01-08 23:10, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Well... The problems I have with that as an argument for questioning
> their views on the subject is..

Hmm.  I'm not sure I'm questioning the views on the subject as outlining 
that the views presented in that context aren't necessarily a pure 
random sampling that can be extrapolated to the whole population.  There 
are, without a doubt, a large number (far larger than there should be) 
of females whose experiences are as bad as presented.  However, I posit 
that the whole point of the site is to bring attention to those things 
/happening/ vs. all the times where it doesn't happen, so there's 
notable skew in that direction.

> Well, that and, one of the major points I am trying to get across is
> that the "male centric" view that sits over top of our culture already
> biases *everything*, including, historically, the interpretations of
> data, and/or even the collection of it, in such studies.

How much, I wonder, of Patriarchy is actively constructed by females? 
Not just as a 'if you're not fighting to destroy it, you're supporting 
it' thing, but directly working towards reinforcing its features?  Women 
aren't just a passive element that are only there to be victims of The 
System; much as some like to insist that women have no real agency 
because their voices aren't heard, throughout history there is a *major* 
impact from their actions, and they are just as complicit in 'how things 
are' as men.  Is it so important to have your name in headlines or the 
history books?

> Its a bias that is so pervasive that the *automatic* reaction of nearly everyone,
> male and female, when an assault happens, is to either joke about what
> "she" might have done, or question it, but not what the guy did.

That's the big point that Patriarchy is harmful to men, too; the reason 
it's not questioned what the guy did is because it's taken for granted 
in modern, Western society that males only think about sex and are 
mindless monsters that have no rationality (while women are able to 
magically control how men behave simply by what they wear and how they 
present themselves).  Such a mindset is harmful to /everyone/, really.

--
T. Cook

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Tim Cook <z99### [at] gmailcom> wrote:

> That's the big point that Patriarchy is harmful to men, too; the reason
> it's not questioned what the guy did is because it's taken for granted
> in modern, Western society that males only think about sex and are
> mindless monsters that have no rationality (while women are able to
> magically control how men behave simply by what they wear and how they
> present themselves).  Such a mindset is harmful to /everyone/, really.
>


<Rantwarning!>

It is that mindset that really offends me. Whenever I see someone wearing a
burka or even a niqab. I feel offended at the implied insult. Chadors and below
don't provoke this reaction in me and the shayla is quite attractive. No! It can
be very attractive.

Phew! I am glad to get that off my chest.

My wife's view is that they should be banned on safety grounds. Moving around
outside, crossing busy streets... should not be done with impaired vision. And
that comes from someone who is partially sighted.

</Rant>

You can read on. ;-)

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On Wed, 08 Jan 2014 13:14:59 +0200, Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:

> John VanSickle <evi### [at] kosherhotmailcom> wrote:
>> He gave them in order to accomplish a number of purposes which He
>> regards as good and just.  However, now that those purposes have been
>> served, the commandments are no longer good and just; therefore they are
>> no longer in effect.
>
> "They are no longer in effect" if you pick&choose verses as you like,
> and ignore others that indicate that they are very much still in effect.
> Of course other branches of Christianity pick&choose in a different
> manner and think that they *are* still in effect (but come up with
> excuses as to why they cannot be enacted.) And I'm not making this up
> because I know of such denominations.
>
If a denomination contradicts the Bible, then they are wrong.
In the Old Testament it was foretold that there would come a time that God  
would write his laws in their minds. This came into fulfillment when they  
were filled with the Holy Spirit.

If you read the Bible you will notice that Jesus never stoned anyone - no  
Christian stoned anyone and no Christian told anyone to stone anyone. In  
fact the opposite happened - Christians were stoned because of their  
belief. Today Christians are jailed and tortured for their belief in  
Muslim countries and China.

> Anyway, from that, and from this:
>
>> I am glad that the commandments were not given to me, but whether
>> something is right or wrong does not depend on how I feel about it.
>
> it's relatively clear that you do not think that many of those
> commandments are good and moral because they clash with your own
> concept of morality.

You are confusing punishment with morality. Sin deserves punishment - if  
you disagree, then you are condoning sin.

God had His plan from the beginning - He didn't simply change His mind  
about what is right or wrong. If you read the law you should realize that  
it is not about stoning, but about knowledge of good and evil and the  
punishment of sin.

God knew that it would be too difficult for us mere humans to bear which  
is why He sent His Son to die in our place so that those who accept His  
sacrifice will not have to suffer Hell.




-- 
-Nekar Xenos-

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Nekar Xenos <nek### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> If a denomination contradicts the Bible, then they are wrong.

And that's what all denominations say about other denominations that
disagree with them. And the vast majority can out-argue you with
Bible passages all day long.

> In the Old Testament it was foretold that there would come a time that God  
> would write his laws in their minds. This came into fulfillment when they  
> were filled with the Holy Spirit.

That has zero to do whether the commandments given by God are still
in effect or not.

(Besides, the passage of Jeremiah you are referring to talks about the
people of Israel, not the gentiles. But of course you can interpret that
as liberally as you want, like all Christian denominations do with most
passages to suit their needs.)

> If you read the Bible you will notice that Jesus never stoned anyone - no  
> Christian stoned anyone and no Christian told anyone to stone anyone.

Neither did he say that the law was forfeit or ended. On the contrary,
he says: "It is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the
least stroke of a pen to drop out of the Law."

> In fact the opposite happened - Christians were stoned because of their  
> belief. Today Christians are jailed and tortured for their belief in  
> Muslim countries and China.

And Christians have jailed and tortured others (and even themselves)
for their beliefs during the entirety of history. And in fact, in some
places are still doing it (given how witches and homosexuals are being
killed by Christians in many parts of the world, especially Africa.)

(I wait for your "no true scotsman" fallacy...)

> You are confusing punishment with morality.

No, I'm not. Morality has a lot to say about crime punishment. For
instance, the severity of the punishment should be correlated to the
severity of the crime, and no criminal should be treated or punished
in an inhumane manner.

Death penalty by stoning is a barbaric and inhumane punishment regardless
of the crime. It's egregiously inhumane for such "crimes" as working
on the sabbath or not respecting your parents.

The fact that he is (and probably you are) glad that we do not enact
such punishment anymore is clear indication that he *knows* how inhumane
and disproportionate, and therefore how immoral, the punishment is.

> God had His plan from the beginning - He didn't simply change His mind  
> about what is right or wrong. If you read the law you should realize that  
> it is not about stoning, but about knowledge of good and evil and the  
> punishment of sin.

The penalty is still there, no matter how you try to twist its message.

> God knew that it would be too difficult for us mere humans to bear which  
> is why He sent His Son to die in our place so that those who accept His  
> sacrifice will not have to suffer Hell.

That doesn't make any kind of sense. Even if it did make any sense, it's
still bollocks. God did not sacrifice anything according to your theology.
Sacrificing is voluntarily losing something. So what exactly did God lose?
Nothing, that's what.

This isn't even going into the question of what kind of sick god would
create a hell where he sends his own creation to suffer indescribable
torment for all eternity because they didn't love him the right way,
while he just watches by, doing nothing.

Do you know what it's called when someone can watch someone else's suffering
and do nothing about it, even though it's fully in their power to end it?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 10/01/2014 8:23 PM, Warp wrote:
> (I wait for your "no true scotsman" fallacy...)

Well, he wasn't a true Scotsman. ;-)

BTW IMHO There is no point, Warp. When you see that level of "faith". 
The only thing you can do is /make your excuses and leave/.

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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On 10/01/2014 19:45, Nekar Xenos wrote:
> On Wed, 08 Jan 2014 13:14:59 +0200, Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
>
>> John VanSickle <evi### [at] kosherhotmailcom> wrote:
>>> He gave them in order to accomplish a number of purposes which He
>>> regards as good and just.  However, now that those purposes have been
>>> served, the commandments are no longer good and just; therefore they are
>>> no longer in effect.
>>
>> "They are no longer in effect" if you pick&choose verses as you like,
>> and ignore others that indicate that they are very much still in effect.
>> Of course other branches of Christianity pick&choose in a different
>> manner and think that they *are* still in effect (but come up with
>> excuses as to why they cannot be enacted.) And I'm not making this up
>> because I know of such denominations.
>>
> If a denomination contradicts the Bible, then they are wrong.
> In the Old Testament it was foretold that there would come a time that
> God would write his laws in their minds. This came into fulfillment when
> they were filled with the Holy Spirit.
>
> If you read the Bible you will notice that Jesus never stoned anyone -
> no Christian stoned anyone and no Christian told anyone to stone anyone.
> In fact the opposite happened - Christians were stoned because of their
> belief. Today Christians are jailed and tortured for their belief in
> Muslim countries and China.
>
>> Anyway, from that, and from this:
>>
>>> I am glad that the commandments were not given to me, but whether
>>> something is right or wrong does not depend on how I feel about it.
>>
>> it's relatively clear that you do not think that many of those
>> commandments are good and moral because they clash with your own
>> concept of morality.
>
> You are confusing punishment with morality. Sin deserves punishment - if
> you disagree, then you are condoning sin.
>
> God had His plan from the beginning - He didn't simply change His mind
> about what is right or wrong. If you read the law you should realize
> that it is not about stoning, but about knowledge of good and evil and
> the punishment of sin.
>
> God knew that it would be too difficult for us mere humans to bear which
> is why He sent His Son to die in our place so that those who accept His
> sacrifice will not have to suffer Hell.
>

I think I have already mentioned 'begging the question'

John <shaking his head in exasperation at a particularly obtuse student>

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On 1/9/2014 12:15 AM, Tim Cook wrote:
> On 2014-01-08 23:10, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> Well... The problems I have with that as an argument for questioning
>> their views on the subject is..
>
> Hmm.  I'm not sure I'm questioning the views on the subject as outlining
> that the views presented in that context aren't necessarily a pure
> random sampling that can be extrapolated to the whole population.  There
> are, without a doubt, a large number (far larger than there should be)
> of females whose experiences are as bad as presented.  However, I posit
> that the whole point of the site is to bring attention to those things
> /happening/ vs. all the times where it doesn't happen, so there's
> notable skew in that direction.
>
Well, the problem is, you can't always be certain, without looking at 
other factors, like.. "how many women on campus, in general, dress like 
that anyway?", which might make the results meaningless. I mean, alcohol 
is obviously a risk, but.. is it more of a risk than something else, if 
half the campus is drinking every weekend? And, how do those things 
extrapolate in the general population, where you might be, for example, 
not drunk, dressed in a business suit, or uniform, for work, etc., and 
almost certainly not matching "any" of the criteria given?

Frankly, I have seen a bit too many cases like this:

https://31.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_luvwphS7LD1r6zdqno1_500.jpg

To believe the, "how you dress matters", claim, for one. The dark alley 
one.. is a maybe, but the percentage of people that stalk like that is 
low, except.. maybe on a campus, where nuts might hang out, because they 
*presume* they can find "loose women" to stalk. So, what does that say 
about dark alley some place else, where there isn't an expectation that 
random victims will wander through, for their convenience?

>> Well, that and, one of the major points I am trying to get across is
>> that the "male centric" view that sits over top of our culture already
>> biases *everything*, including, historically, the interpretations of
>> data, and/or even the collection of it, in such studies.
>
> How much, I wonder, of Patriarchy is actively constructed by females?
> Not just as a 'if you're not fighting to destroy it, you're supporting
> it' thing, but directly working towards reinforcing its features?  Women
> aren't just a passive element that are only there to be victims of The
> System; much as some like to insist that women have no real agency
> because their voices aren't heard, throughout history there is a *major*
> impact from their actions, and they are just as complicit in 'how things
> are' as men.  Is it so important to have your name in headlines or the
> history books?
>
Supported by, certainly, it happens all the time, all you need to do is 
look at the bloody idiot women who support extreme Republican positions 
in the US. Creating it.. only in the sense that they where brought up in 
it, many people convinced them, via upbringing, that it made sense, and 
is "natural", or "meant to be", and they turned around and just parroted 
that back, as defense of the world they already live in, to other 
people, including their own kids.

>> Its a bias that is so pervasive that the *automatic* reaction of
>> nearly everyone,
>> male and female, when an assault happens, is to either joke about what
>> "she" might have done, or question it, but not what the guy did.
>
> That's the big point that Patriarchy is harmful to men, too; the reason
> it's not questioned what the guy did is because it's taken for granted
> in modern, Western society that males only think about sex and are
> mindless monsters that have no rationality (while women are able to
> magically control how men behave simply by what they wear and how they
> present themselves).  Such a mindset is harmful to /everyone/, really.
>
Hmm. To an extent yeah. But it goes beyond that. There has been a 
default assumption about "purity", and a lot of other things. Someone 
once made a damn good argument, I think it was on a video blog called 
"Sex+", that no one, once they start looking at other people in terms of 
sex are "innocent", that virginity is a delusion, and, she even has one 
video torpedoing the very idea that "deflowering" is a real thing, and 
not just a sign of the person doing it a) not knowing any better, b) not 
being willing to take time, and c) a result of neither partner knowing 
what the F they are really doing. As she points out, the opening in 
question has to stretch to allow a baby to go through, but.. somehow, 
the first time, you can't stretch it enough to get a two inch tube into it?

But, beyond that, a guy that sleeps around get patted on the back, even 
*when* he has taken some sort of absurd purity pledge. Its no big deal 
if he breaks it. A woman with a high sex drive... is a slut, period, 
even if by "high" you mean, "Slept with one guy, one time.", before 
dating someone else. And, yes, again, its a gibberish idea supported by 
both men, and women, often completely unintentionally, because you just 
tell girls one thing about their behavior, and boys another, from the 
moment they are born. Even levels of aggressiveness, how they handle 
situations, etc., are a result of "training", not wiring. Girls are just 
as nasty about outsiders, but they **learn** to use a sort of inclusive 
exclusion, where they give someone they don't like a role to play, then 
tell them, "Just wait there, we don't need you yet.", sidelining them, 
while convincing the more gullible ones that they are being "included". 
Guys may, sometimes, do the same thing, as a kind of joke. Both do so, 
to hurt the person, sometimes, but.. girls are told "this" method of 
dealing with the situation is right, because its non-violent (don't hit 
you brother, girls don't do that!), while guys, do it to add to the 
pain, but may just beat the shit out of someone, because its "OK" for 
them to be physically aggressive.

Lots studies on this sort of thing too. Out of which bits of truth get 
teased, but only after we stopped "assuming" there was something 
inherently different between the sexes, and asked, "How much of this is 
a result of how they where taught to handle situations, and, more to the 
point, how to **not** handle them, and what does that do to how they 
express the same aggressions?"

The progress we make in fixing this isn't going to come from trying to 
"protect" people from threats that only exist as threats because they 
are part of a list of "built in" assumptions, in the current social 
structure. That doesn't work, because the assumptions simply change, as 
clothing styles, and the like, do, without addressing the underlying 
problem, which is that the assumptions exist at all. Its going to be 
fixed by torpedoing the idea that men and women are "naturally" 
different, when, all too often, they are merely living in parallel 
cultures, without realizing it, in which "crossing the line" and doing 
something from the other "culture" gets punished (a guy being just as 
ignored, or punished, for doing something feminine, though perhaps a bit 
less so, than when a woman, even today, enters a field heavy with men). 
We still have the same problem today, for example, that Johnson ran into 
decades ago, when in science and medicine. And.. try to be a straight 
guy doing hair dressing, or something, and see what happens...

Though, I must admit, its funnier than hell that, back when Masters and 
Johnson where doing work on sex, women where freaked at the idea that 
other women might be looking at their private parts, while having an 
medical examination, but now.. you are just as likely to have them 
freaked out by a guy doing the same thing. Somehow, the same problem 
persists, its just shifting categories, instead of going away. I am sure 
there are less clear examples of this happening too. Because, the 
underlying issues never get addressed, the assumptions just shift.

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On 1/10/2014 1:23 PM, Warp wrote:
> This isn't even going into the question of what kind of sick god would
> create a hell where he sends his own creation to suffer indescribable
> torment for all eternity because they didn't love him the right way,
> while he just watches by, doing nothing.
>
Only, he didn't.

The Bible, the "original Coptic" and earlier versions, not the "improved 
by blurring it all together, because scared people are more likely to 
obey", versions made later, mentions these things:

1. Gehenna - A city dump, outside Jerusalem. It was common practice for 
bodies of those dead from disease to be burned with the city trash here. 
The passage that modern versions "insist" on calling "hell" here thus 
states that, to paraphrase, since I don't have the exact quote, "If you 
fall in with the wrong people, your soul will be burned, along with your 
body, in the garbage dump, outside the city." No idea if "soul" is even 
the proper word here, but this seems to me to be the equivalent of 
saying that, "If you fall in with the wrong people, your reputation will 
die with you, and no one will remember anything you did, other than that 
you got thrown out with the rest of the trash."

2. Some bit later on, there is some passage that references the word 
"Hades", obviously in the NT. Having been influenced at that point, by 
the Romans/Greeks, they came up with the idea that your "soul" went to 
this place when you died. Its "misinterpreted", thanks to later 
revision, and some later passages, as some sort of great paradise, where 
you see god all the time. But, Hades, and thus the place meant "by" the 
original text, is not paradise, its a place of waiting, where you sit 
around, oblivious of everything going on anywhere, like tape storage, 
until some later time, when god decides to do something about you.

3. Later on, another "edit" exchanges Tartarus, which is a prison for 
fallen angels, with "hell", again, completely changing the meaning, and 
making it some place of punishment for everyone. Though, its unclear if 
these edits came before, or after, they commissioned Dante, to make up 
some elaborate absurdity called "hell", and we got stuck with the whole 
lakes of fire, and souls being punished forever stuff.

But, if you want the real version of death, from the OT of the Bible, 
before priests started taking on bits of Roman mythology, then you get a 
lovely section which basically states that all of the rewards you will 
ever have, all that you will ever know, or experience, all wisdom that 
you might acquire, etc., you got "in life" and that no man, whether 
good, or evil, can expect anything more, or experience, or do, anything, 
at all, once dead. That you get this one life, and that is it *period*.

Ecclesiastics 9:10 "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your 
might, for in the realm of the dead, where you are going, there is 
neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom."

And yet, people believe they gain all of these, in heaven.

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On 2014-01-11 16:17, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> And, yes, again, its a gibberish idea supported by
> both men, and women, often completely unintentionally, because you just
> tell girls one thing about their behavior, and boys another, from the
> moment they are born. Even levels of aggressiveness, how they handle
> situations, etc., are a result of "training", not wiring.

I think that completely discounting 'wiring' as a contributing factor to 
behaviour and saying that /everything/ is social conditioning is as 
flawed as the other way around.  There really are actual physical 
differences between the sexes that go beyond just 'that's a matter of 
upbringing and presentation'.

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On 1/12/2014 6:10 PM, Tim Cook wrote:
> On 2014-01-11 16:17, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> And, yes, again, its a gibberish idea supported by
>> both men, and women, often completely unintentionally, because you just
>> tell girls one thing about their behavior, and boys another, from the
>> moment they are born. Even levels of aggressiveness, how they handle
>> situations, etc., are a result of "training", not wiring.
>
> I think that completely discounting 'wiring' as a contributing factor to
> behaviour and saying that /everything/ is social conditioning is as
> flawed as the other way around.  There really are actual physical
> differences between the sexes that go beyond just 'that's a matter of
> upbringing and presentation'.
I am not completely discounting it. Its just that, when its even 
possible to make clear determinations, of any kind, as to differences, 
the "overlap" represents like 99% of the population, with the outliers 
being on either end of the remaining 1%. Well, ok, not exactly those 
numbers, but you get the point. Worse, studies on things like spacial 
ability, which is generally assumed to be a trait men are better at, 
turn out to disappear completely, if you expose the women in a study to, 
say, video games, which require a lot of spacial recognition. Its simply 
a case that women are "less likely to need it", due to cultural factors, 
so don't develop it as extensively. Expose them to conditions where they 
do need it, and the supposed "difference" disappears. Give that sort of 
thing, how is it even possible to say that there is an area of 
"overlap", with outliers, who don't fit, and that those "edges" are, in 
fact, purely a social artifact? Answer- You can't, which throws a wrench 
in the whole assumption that any differences, at all, in terms of mental 
ability, and how we deal with the world, are hardwired, or, if any of it 
is, then, if given the same exact conditions, without cultural biases, 
likely to produce "obvious" differences.

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