Punishment for Adultery
The argument about the desirability of punishing adulterers I have been pursuing with Agustino is irrelevant to the thread (Mysticism) where it has so far been pursued, as others have pointed out. So I am starting this thread really just to respond to Agustino's point about people being able to divorce if a marriage does not turn out to be a success, and his point about people not being compelled to marry and thus become morally (and legally if he has his way) compelled to uphold the vows of marriage. His point is that given these 'outs' people should be held accountable before the law if they breach what he claims should be (and I think arguably has even claimed is) the legally binding contract of marriage.
To my knowledge; which admittedly is limited by the fact that I am no cultural historian, in (at least Western) societies where adultery was/ is punishable, divorce (except perhaps notably for men in Islamic societies), was/is usually not an option. Also either marriage and/or participation in illicit sexual relations was/ is in those kinds of societies mostly mandatory for those who want to have sexual relations at all, due to strict prohibitions against illicit kinds of sexual relations. Also, due to the fact that many marriages were arranged in traditional societies; it would not be surprising if many people found themselves in marriages which were not satisfying.
Today, both sexual relations outside the context of marriage, as well as divorce, are easily obtainable options. Agustino wants to promote marriage and also the notion that marriage vows should be understood to be legally binding (which they are currently not understood to be). I contend that this is a self-contradictory set of aims because legal enforcement of marriage vows would result in even less people marrying. Since marriage vows are nowadays by no means standard and many, if not most people write up the vows to be declared in their own marriage ceremonies, in personalized ways such that they can feel comfortable with declaring and affirming them, it would not seem that the option of choosing a legally enforceable marriage contract would appeal to many people.
The fact that marriage vows are not legally binding in the strict sense that one can actually be prosecuted for not adhering to them, and that people do not currently enter into marriage affirming marriage vows that they understand to be legally binding pretty much demolishes Agustino's argument that they are currently breaching any legal contract. So, the law would need to be changed prior to any prosecutions, in any case, such that marriage vows would become legally binding and so that people would then be made aware of precisely what kind of agreement they were entering into.
As I already touched on, I don't believe this would reinforce the nuclear family or the kind of conservative social stability that Agustino apparently finds desirable, because the most plausible result would be that even less people would want to be married in this new kind of 'ultra-traditional' way, less people even than currently want the traditional marriage vows, as opposed to their own set, to be part of their marriage ceremonies.
The other point of contention between Agustino and myself in regard to this issue is that I fail to see how instituting something as law that arguably very few people would want to live subject to, could possibly reinforce the stability of society. This is a point which, so far, Agustino has utterly failed to address. No doubt, there is much more that might be said against Agustino's highly contentious position, but I think that should do to get the ball rolling.
I hope that others will weigh in on this, because to be honest I have already said as much as I can be bothered saying about an issue that I don't find particularly interesting, but felt compelled to address as much as I have due to what I see as the egregiously conservative and unsupportable anti-populist nature of Agustino's claims. I hope others will share the burden and rally to the virtuous cause of setting him right on this matter, even if only for his own sake. (I have been assuming all along that Agustino is sincere in making these outrageous claims and that I am not merely being a gullible idiot by falling victim to the enticements of a troll). ;)
To my knowledge; which admittedly is limited by the fact that I am no cultural historian, in (at least Western) societies where adultery was/ is punishable, divorce (except perhaps notably for men in Islamic societies), was/is usually not an option. Also either marriage and/or participation in illicit sexual relations was/ is in those kinds of societies mostly mandatory for those who want to have sexual relations at all, due to strict prohibitions against illicit kinds of sexual relations. Also, due to the fact that many marriages were arranged in traditional societies; it would not be surprising if many people found themselves in marriages which were not satisfying.
Today, both sexual relations outside the context of marriage, as well as divorce, are easily obtainable options. Agustino wants to promote marriage and also the notion that marriage vows should be understood to be legally binding (which they are currently not understood to be). I contend that this is a self-contradictory set of aims because legal enforcement of marriage vows would result in even less people marrying. Since marriage vows are nowadays by no means standard and many, if not most people write up the vows to be declared in their own marriage ceremonies, in personalized ways such that they can feel comfortable with declaring and affirming them, it would not seem that the option of choosing a legally enforceable marriage contract would appeal to many people.
The fact that marriage vows are not legally binding in the strict sense that one can actually be prosecuted for not adhering to them, and that people do not currently enter into marriage affirming marriage vows that they understand to be legally binding pretty much demolishes Agustino's argument that they are currently breaching any legal contract. So, the law would need to be changed prior to any prosecutions, in any case, such that marriage vows would become legally binding and so that people would then be made aware of precisely what kind of agreement they were entering into.
As I already touched on, I don't believe this would reinforce the nuclear family or the kind of conservative social stability that Agustino apparently finds desirable, because the most plausible result would be that even less people would want to be married in this new kind of 'ultra-traditional' way, less people even than currently want the traditional marriage vows, as opposed to their own set, to be part of their marriage ceremonies.
The other point of contention between Agustino and myself in regard to this issue is that I fail to see how instituting something as law that arguably very few people would want to live subject to, could possibly reinforce the stability of society. This is a point which, so far, Agustino has utterly failed to address. No doubt, there is much more that might be said against Agustino's highly contentious position, but I think that should do to get the ball rolling.
I hope that others will weigh in on this, because to be honest I have already said as much as I can be bothered saying about an issue that I don't find particularly interesting, but felt compelled to address as much as I have due to what I see as the egregiously conservative and unsupportable anti-populist nature of Agustino's claims. I hope others will share the burden and rally to the virtuous cause of setting him right on this matter, even if only for his own sake. (I have been assuming all along that Agustino is sincere in making these outrageous claims and that I am not merely being a gullible idiot by falling victim to the enticements of a troll). ;)
Comments (261)
If one makes a promise to another who is important to one then the disapprobation of the other and in extremis, the loss of relationship with her or him is sufficient punishment, I would say. Not to mention the disapproval of other people one might care about and the reduction of esteem for oneself that might grow in them. "Naming and shaming" has long been an effective form of punishment, albeit less practiced these days. It is a form of moral, not legal, punishment, though: legal punishment is an entirely different matter.
When it comes to promises made to strangers, that is precisely why they are generally made legally binding; because of the lack of trust and care for one another that often exists between strangers.
But this does not take into account the pain caused to the other party. The one who is cheated on deserves no punishment, yet is forced to suffer the same punishment as the cheater.
Sure, I'm not advocating that it is ideal that people should cheat on one another, but you are not addressing the issue; which is whether the person who cheats should be punishable by law. And the associated question is whether cheating itself could be properly legally defined, unless laws were introduced to make marriage vows legally binding in this fuller sense. And even then, would it not be the case that only those who chose to subject themselves to such marriage vows could be legally accused of cheating, let alone punished for it?
Agustino did battle on this topic in the old Philosophy Forum. It was lively. This time around, let's spend less time figuring out how to punish people who commit adultery and spend more time figuring out how to help families be successful.
Adultery in the context of the usual marriage vows is unhelpful, contradictory, and often destructive. What I consider important is that IF a heterosexual marriage leads to children, then the parents should endeavor to keep their relationship healthy and centered on raising healthy, productive and reasonably happy children. That means avoiding adultery, addictions, irresponsible debt, desertion, and the like.
We (American society) do not do a very good job of helping parents succeed, and truth be told, a good many people who think they should become parents ought to be strenuously discouraged from committing much effort to that goal unless they get their act together.
Successful families need:
Single parenthood (as a starting plan) should be strongly discouraged.
Parents should take financial responsibility for their offspring and I the taxpayer should be last resort - but then, generous - helper of the single parent.
All the rest of this moralising...what has other people's adultery to do with me?
You should specify the harm they can cause to their partner, and the nature of the harm - namely long-term harm, which is not reparable or in any other way amenable.
Quoting John
This is not true. In most Western countries divorce became legally possible before adultery was made legally permissible.
Quoting John
Many people? Justify this please.
Quoting John
Good! Those people shouldn't get married in the first place. The point is to protect those who are interested to get married, with everything that marriage entails, and sexual loyalty and exclusivity is one of the entailments of marriage in MOST people's minds - because you so love to throw around this word. If they're not interested in marriage, they can just go ahead and live together, form a civic partnership, etc. Marriage should not be degraded so that we get more people marrying - these people would form terrible marriages anyway - and set terrible examples for everyone else too!
Quoting John
First of all - there's nothing "ultra" about it. You throw around these pejorative labels, but there's nothing ultra in there. It's simply traditional. Do you have a problem with tradition? Do you have a problem with respecting traditions? Most people who have ever lived have had similar traditions. You of course ignore that all major religions, without exception, condemn adultery in harsh and explicit manners - and this includes non-Abrahamic religions, such as Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism. There's nothing "ultra" about this proposal - there is something very "ultra-radical" about your proposal perhaps. But that's another story, one that I'm not very interested to explore, because it has nothing to do with the essence of this conversation. I have no need to derail this conversation to score meaningless victories over you - it's about the ideas, and what should be done - not what was done. If we play by what was done, then you've already lost. Second of all, it's about protecting people who want to marry and who want their marriage vows to be respected. They have a right to be protected. This is more important than "less people would want to be married" - I am not concerned whether they want to be married or not - that is irrelevant.
Quoting John
Do you happen to have a short memory? :)
Quoting Agustino
Quoting John
There is nothing virtuous in gleefully enjoying other people being hurt and seeing their lives ruined. Maybe for you that is virtue - certainly not for me.
Now - the rest of your post is filled with counterfactuals. Such as most people don't care about marriage vows, most people don't want their vow of fidelity and sexual exclusivity to be respected, or don't care too much about it, and other such nonsense. I will not address this. My next post will address what matters - your OP addressed everything probably except the truly important matters.
You seem to have completely missed the fact that marriage is a civil contract and that breach of said contract is therefore a tort and not a crime. Nobody is advocating the vacation of vows and promises by wishing to maintain this eminently sensible distinction which has applied in the vast majority of the world's legal systems for centuries.
One should perhaps remember that in Semitic law which is the basis of Torah and Islamic Law only a woman can commit adultery as the law's original purpose is to ensure the purity of family lines and particularly ensure that the father of a child is known beyond doubt. I assume that you are not suggesting that it would have been better to retain such a law rather than make it a matter for the civil courts?
Well, I've clearly argued that the person who breaks the vow ought to be punished, or else the vow is pointless. Now, if it isn't going to be the law, the state, which imposes such punishment who is it going to be? Punishment is not something we can just be handing out to one another, unless we establish a law which allows this. But wouldn't this just be a different form of being punished by law?
Marriage has become a legal institution, rather than a religious one. If certain vows are included in that institution, then the legal system is responsible for the punishment of breaking such vows. Here, I think we come to a very important distinction between the approach of religion, and the approach of the state, toward this type of issue. Most religions are structured toward encouraging success of morality, in distinction from the state, which is structured toward punishment for failure. This directly relates to Bitter Crank's point:
Quoting Bitter Crank
It is much more productive, and constructive, to provide as many means as possible to assist individuals in keeping the vow, rather than simply punishing those who break it. The problem is that instead of taking the very difficult "good" route, which is to help those who need help, prior to them doing something wrong, encouraging success, we so often choose the not so good, but easy route, which is to punish those after they have done something wrong.
If the state has taken on the responsibility of the institution of ,marriage, then it must either discontinue such vows altogether, or structure its laws to support the vows. If such vows are continued, then the state must be structured such that keeping them is encouraged, and breaking them discouraged.
What's that got to do with it, I get punished for speeding, and that's not a crime.
Balderdash, stuff and nonsense, propaganda and codswallop! You may find these things desirable but that is a very distant thing from what others need and this [s]moral[/s] censorious charter is absolutely not a guarantee of success (if that term is even meaningful in the context!)
What the heck is 'traditional child-rearing practice' for a start? Whose tradition from what part of history? There are as many 'child-rearing practices' as there are stars in the sky (well visible ones anyway) and almost all of them somehow manage to produce pretty much the same balance of good and bad people. And 'functioning community'? What's that when it's at home?
Of course it's a crime! Speeding is an offence under statute (the Road Traffic Act here in UK). You can't be fined for a civil offence, you'd have to be sued!
It is a form of enslavement, which the emphasis here given to adultery illustrates. It institutionalises the ownership of another, and has its roots in the male desire to support only the fruit of his own loins. Thus it encourages selfishness. is radically sexist, and treats women and children as chattels.
No one has the right to be loved cherished and obeyed for a lifetime, and such a clause in any other contract would be stuck down as unfair and unreasonable.
But love cannot anyway be subject to contract any more than a gift can be part of a trade. It is a nonsense that belittles the free relationship of people caring for each other.
Quoting Agustino
To which John replied:
Quoting John
Then Wayfarer and myself actually gave John the evidence - to which of course he never replied:
Quoting Wayfarer
Quoting Agustino
But he did continue with the pejorative counterfactual insults:
Quoting John
Quoting John
Quoting John
Quoting John
Quoting John
I tried to remedy these biases and explain to John:
Quoting Agustino
It is also significant to state that John mentioned adultery first:
Quoting John
Quoting John
To which I replied:
Quoting Agustino
Quoting Agustino
To this - which notice has to do with the morality of adultery, and NOT its legality, John replies:
Quoting John
Of course one is surprised at such a reaction - especially as it had been John the one who has consistently ignored the evidence provided, consistently attempted to say that Orthodox tradition had no mystics, consistently trying to say or insinuate that Orthodoxy is totalitarian, and consistently refusing to accept his incorrect readings of the Bible - which he has started to even call "creative misreading". So I have to inquire why - this is about the morality of adultery here - he apparently is so disgusted if a husband beats his wife - but he is not disgusted at all if the same husband were to cheat on his wife! In fact - if someone dares to label this latter act as immoral, he is suddenly catalogued as "ultra-conservative" - forget the legality issue - this is bigger than that. Here is a man who is opposed to morally condemning adultery! So to this John continues with the same dogmatic propaganda and insults:
Quoting John
Notice his flippancy - as if any of these (apart from the open relationship claim) is a justification for adultery - somehow if these things are the case, according to the Gospel of Liberal Progressive John, it becomes at least less immoral to commit adultery! Furthermore, I have explained to him by pointing to statistics that men cheat more often than women, and women are more likely to be negatively affected by adultery. And yet of course John ignores it. He doesn't even retract his false accusation that morally condemning adultery is a case of patriarchal control over a woman's sexuality - while the truth, as shown by the facts, is quite literarily the opposite. If anyone is controlled by having adultery be immoral, then it is much moreso men than women. Through the rest of the thread, which did descend into a discussion of the legality of adultery, I kept being appalled by the pure and irrational unquestioning dogma of John, which he has repeatedly tried to enforce on others.
Quoting Agustino
Quoting John
This is in contra-distinction to other progressives who intervened and discussed their views politely - without insulting - such as AndrewK.
Now the really important bits:
1. John finds it repugnant to condemn adultery, even in a moral sense. He doesn't find it equally repugnant to condemn violence, or theft - even though quite often adultery produces MORE HARM than these. In fact, even some progressives in the thread in question have recognised that adultery is "most often" harmful.
2. John doesn't care about the nuclear family as he seemingly tries to fake in this thread:
Quoting John
3. John is dogmatic, and insulting about his assertions. He demands that it be as he says it is, while ignoring all the evidence to the contrary. All the arguments and statements he has made have been refuted - they are factually wrong. He - and not anyone else - is in fact totalitarian.
4. John has failed to answer what bothers him, or any hypothetical person, about adultery being made illegal - does he plan to commit it? If a man doesn't plan to commit adultery, why would he be bothered by the legality of it?! At worst, he would be indifferent. If he is bothered by it, clearly something is taken away from him (or from others) by such a law - what is it, except the freedom to commit adultery which is precisely under the question?
5. John has repeatedly tried to insinuate that a law against adultery is the dissolution of private life - yet he has failed to realise that for most people private life isn't for committing adultery, and if it was, then it should rightly be abolished.
6. John has repeatedly failed to acknowledge that harmfulness of adultery, and continued to insist in the apologetics he provided for it. I would not be surprised if in his life John has committed or wants to commit adultery - certainly nothing else could justify such dogmatism. It is understandable if one thinks that adultery shouldn't be criminalised - like some of the people in the other thread - but they recognise that this is only their opinion, and not the only one which can claim to being reasonable. However - to seek to impose this by threat of ridicule through slanderous statements is intellectually dishonest.
7. John has never addressed the core of the argument
a) Adultery is a long-term, serious, unreperable harm that is done to someone - a harm that will follow them their whole life.
b) Adultery is both a breach of consent and contract, and also a direct harm - a harm which doesn't stop just with breaching a contract - it causes profound spiritual and emotional torment, and excites the most violent, rapacious, and destructive emotions, combining anger, hatred, disgust, jealousy, and much more.
c) People have a right to be protected from being intentionally harmed by others.
d) Therefore: is at least necessary to condemn adultery very strongly from a moral point of view - as has been done by virtually all religions - and quite possibly to instantiate a legal punishment for it. This is not in agreement with John's lacking morality, which prefers to see innocent people suffer at the hands of their oppressors and sees such suffering as normal and part of life, which is much more like the attitude exemplified 100 years ago by slave owners. It certainly doesn't justify John feeling it "repugnant" to morally condemn adultery. And it certainly doesn't justify his dogmatic attitude about the legality of adultery. This quite possibly also justifies a legal punishment for adultery - although the argument isn't proof for this, but merely indication that it may be good to have such a punishment - this means there is nothing "ultra-conservative" about it, and it is a perfectly acceptable position to hold.
Where I live, speeding is not a criminal offence. Such things vary from one country to another.
Truly you bear your name :P Read Kierkegaard's Works of Love - maybe you'll learn something about it (namely that duty is a sanctification of love), and remove that "un" from your name ;) . Owning each other is exactly what love is. Just like the Communists wanted ownership of property in common, two lovers want ownership of each other in common - and they want their love to be eternal. They don't want to be two people - they want to be one with each other. For eternity - this is just what they want.
As for your counterfactual assertions about women and children - that's totally false. First of all, sanctions for adultery have benefited women much more than men. This is a fact. Just look at the statistics. If marriage didn't exist, 1000 years ago, women would have been chattel. Men would have had sex with them, and thrown them away - out, into the street. They would just take the children. That's the condition women would have lived in without marriage. This is nothing other than progressive liberal propaganda - which is counterfactual - very important.
Ideologues like you, fail to see that you shall love your neighbour as yourself! You want to love your neighbor more than yourself - that's why you say it's selfishness to listen to your own desires. But this is false. Being one with someone means, that just like your liver does not forget its own needs while in collaboration with the rest of your body, so too, you do not forget your self in collaboration with others, whether in a love relationship, or in a community. It's about giving equal priority to yourself and to the other person. If the other hurts, you hurt. But if you hurt, then the other also hurts - which you seem to forget.
Not to mention that your whole post is a failure to acknowledge the fair and normal desire for another, which is found in most human beings. What you promote is not love - but a moral abomination.
Well, as you are apparently unwilling to reveal the identity of this strange 'plase' I suppose I'll have to take your word for it while retaining my right to extreme skepticism!
There's nothing strange about it. In my country it is the same as for MU. You fail to differentiate between something which is penal, and something which is punishable by civil law. Speeding is punishable by civil law, but is not penal - at least in most cases. Killing someone is penal - it's in the penal code of your country - which is different than the civil code of your country.
Crimes are in the penal code. Offences are in the civil code. Crimes also generally involve punishments with or related to going to prison, whereas offences imply other sorts of punishment - such as fines, etc.
Indeed nobody has the right. That's why it's a contract requiring the agreement of both parties. And in the vast majority of cases these days that contract is devoid of 'clauses' regarding obeisance, ownership and the other stuff you seem to object to. So unless you're advocating that all contracts freely entered into by both parties and sealed with the requisite consideration should be banned, which would make life infinitely more complicated and chaotic, I'm really not sure that your argument has any merit at all!
Again, this would be a lot easier to argue if you actually identified the country so that I can pinpoint the relevant law. I am a little mystified at how something for which there is a penalty is not part of a penal code. But maybe I'm just not being clear as to my definitions (though it seemed pretty obvious to me) so ...
I am simply using the gross legal distinction between crime, that which is prohibited by law (be that national statute, local by-law, local authority order, or court injunction) and punishable by imprisonment, fine or other privation (in accordance with the provisions of the law), and tort, damage or injury to a person or corporation by neglect, default or intention under an actual or implied contract (duty of care, for example) for which upon application by the plaintiff the defendant may be required to make restitution and/or pay compensatory. The niceties of whether it's called a crime, or a (civil) offence, or a misdemeanour are irrelevant. If you're charged then it's criminal, if you're sued then it's civil. Speeding, no matter what words are used to describe it or what the title of the particular law or order under which it is prohibited is therefore criminal. The police or the relevant traffic authority do not sue you for compensation. They fine you. If you do not pay the fine they will go on to prosecute you in a criminal court.
Adultery is in the vast majority of countries a tort (civil) not an offence (criminal). It is not prohibited by any legal instrument. It may be grounds for divorce which, though rarely these days actually coming to the attention of a court, is a law suit seeking the dissolution of the contract of marriage and equitable division of assets.
No - this isn't the case. In your country - the UK - you are correct. But for example in the US, speeding is not a crime. Neither is it a crime in many other places across Europe. Not all things which are prohibited by law are criminal.
I largely agree. I'm not interested to discuss the legality of adultery with John, so much so that I am morally horrified at his moral lack of concern for the victims of adultery - be they the spouse or the children. The fact that he finds it "ultra conservative" or other such pejorative label to even state publicly that adultery is morally wrong - that's what I have a problem with. I think the avenue you propose is more helpful.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Yes - but a marriage will lead to children, unless one of the partners is unable to have children perhaps. But even then adoptions are possible. And as for people getting married and not having children - that is very strange. Perhaps they shouldn't get married if they never plan to have children. They could still live together, etc. but why marry? Furthermore, what about the harm that adultery would do to the partner, not only to the children? It seems to me that adultery would be contradictory and destructive in any monogamous relationship where loyalty and sexual exclusivity exist, and where the intimacy between partners is important ie in a marriage. People can live together outside of marriage, and obviously there is no adultery there as such - except that obviously people will be harmed by cheating, less severely than in a marriage, but still harmed, in a way that is morally reprehensible - obviously though there would be no legal grounds to sanction this though. Nor can much be done to discourage it except what you said afterwards, which is to have strong families, which can educate people, and guide them away from the dangers of such lifestyles, leaving it ultimately to their choice after this.
Quoting Bitter Crank
I agree.
Your proposals seem dangerously close to conservatism though BC :P How does a Marxist explain this?
So you're just not going to bother with the very clear distinction that I made and you're just going to go on playing semantics? Whoopee! Well I suppose it keeps you from having to engage with the actual issues under discussion! Would it be better for you if I replaced 'criminal' with 'illegal' then? Or shall I just make something up. Speeding is "kersplutzabubble' whereas adultery is "fluddlepuddle", perhaps?
I think the point I was making is absolutely clear as was the intent of the reply to enmire me in obscurantism to avoid addressing it. If neither of you have anything to contribute on the actual matter in hand, I'll take my leave and wish you a very good afternoon from the splendidly well defined UK to your legally impenetrable countries.
I don't engage with it, because I don't care about such matters - honestly. I don't want to discuss whether adultery should be civil offence, or a penal offence, etc. These are details. If I was a politician I would hand this stuff to the lawyers for them to best decide how to legally handle it. They aren't even relevant to the conversation I was having with John. The question at most was whether adultery should be punishable - how it will be punishable is a matter for debate, a debate which I'm not interested in now. But to determine whether something should be punishable in some way X, it is enough to look at the effects of certain actions, and the place they have in the relationship between people.
I just stopped to correct a mistaken assumption that you were making about other countries, and that's all. I have no interest to go into a detailed discussion of this. You can read about US law (or Latvia's law, etc.) by yourself.
Can't argue with that, I chose it myself. A strong argument that anything I say can be dismissed without argument.
Quoting Agustino
It is not a fact. Show me the statistics.
But your counterfactual declaration is simply a pronouncement that sexism, and slavery are the natural state of man; a Hobbesian argument in favour of the least worst option. My partner and I have been faithfully unmarried for 27 years during which we have brought up 4 children, one of which is my biological offspring. If one doesn't want to be separate, two people, then there is no difficulty in living as one. So you rather reinforce my point than attack it. Punishment, and the threat of punishment is a form of coercion that has no place in a mutual relationship, and can only have a negative impact, sustaining a loveless and divided relation through fear.
Quoting Agustino
I tell you what, why don't you make shit up about me and what people like me think, and argue with that instead of addressing my post? Oh, you already did.
http://magazine.foxnews.com/love/cheating-statistics-do-men-cheat-more-women for example this. 70% for men, 50% for women in the US. The difference is much larger in parts of Europe. And by the way, you have no right to stomp your feet and demand statistics that you can look up for yourself.
Quoting unenlightened
There is no sexism in that sir. It's the same deal for both man and woman. What's sexist about it if I may ask? It's the same rule applied to both. Nothing can possibly be sexist in that. It's not different rules for each. It's the same.
Quoting unenlightened
Well I'm happy for you - but this isn't to say that this is a stable arrangement. It may have worked in your particular case - but that's all.
Quoting unenlightened
It's not about threat of punishment, etc. It's about protecting people from being intentionally harmed by others.
Quoting unenlightened
I didn't make things up Sir. It's the implications of your statements.
You seem to have some abstract imaginations about what motivates monogamous marriage - namely that the desire to care only for one's offspring or some other looney thing. But this ignores a basic human experience - that of (1) raising children, and (2) that of love. Marriage creates an environment which is guaranteed and in which children can be raised. Love demands the union of two people for eternity - otherwise it is not worthy of being called love. As Kierkegaard said, even the poets refuse in disgust to celebrate any love which does not desire to be eternal. But for love to be eternal, it cannot swear on itself. It must swear on that which is higher - the eternal - God. And therefore it must swear on duty - so the two people accept willingly to be bound by duty - because that is what it takes to give their love eternity.
Look sir - you can think whatever you want - but it's wrong that you judge people based only on your experience. Statistics indicate that your positions - namely that monogamous marriage favors men - are wrong. It's the opposite sir, and it has been so through history. Imagine how badly women would have been treated - like expendable goods - if men did not have to commit to them. You are just refusing to see a basic fact of human existence in order to remain faithful to your ideology.
No, I'm not advocating that at all. I'm saying that contracts are fine in a limited sphere, and so long as the terms are reasonable, and there are suitable provisions for exit and human rights are maintained. And these are the stipulations that are not fulfilled by marriage contracts. Unfair terms, such as extortionate interest rates on a loan can be 'freely' entered into by the desperate or thoughtless, but such unfair terms should not be, and often are not regarded in law as binding or legitimate. Even mortgages provide for early exit by paying the principal early.
The thread is about punishment for adultery. Punishment can only protect to the extent that it deters through fear.
But let us be clear. Punishment for adultery would protect me from the intentional harm caused me by person I want to be one with? And " If the other hurts, you hurt. But if you hurt, then the other also hurts ...", so you kindly instruct me. So the net effect is that I am to be hurt for hurting myself. Clearly I have gone wrong somewhere; I cannot believe you are advocating such abhorrent madness.
What contributes to healthy, nurturing families does not vary greatly from left to right. (Marx himself, as you no doubt know, was not exactly a paragon of familial propriety.) That so many couples in the United States ((which is what I am familiar with) are having serious difficulties maintaining relationships and healthy and strong families doesn't seem entirely mysterious. three points:
1. It takes community to create healthy nurturing families, and community has been collapsing for decades.
2. Shrinking and maldistributed economic resources degrade individual, community, and family capacity to succeed. It isn't just that large numbers of people have less income than they need, it's the psycho-social effect of large income disparities communities. Inadequate income from work means more time spent at work for both spouses, which short changes everyone in the family.
3. The expectations of very large numbers of individuals are altogether out of sync with what they can reasonably achieve.
Is everything falling apart? No. If you look at healthy, economically stable communities you can find healthy families. You can find some healthy families in communities that are falling apart too. But on the whole, the proportion of communities and families in economic and psychosocial distress are perhaps the majority.
Very-large-scale changes in western culture are probably beyond any sort of remediation. The controlling role of religion in society probably is not going to return, which I view as more a blessing than a curse, but there is definitely a downside.) Communication technologies, world economic shifts, and a host of other factors have a role to play in the difficulties individuals experience.
I may sound conservative here, but some of the old-fashioned virtues have survival value in a rotting capitalist state.
Really, Agustino, you have to reference better sources than Fox News Magazine.
Quoting Barry Etheridge
I'm glad that someone spoke out against his comment. He might have meant well, and there is probably [I]some[/I] truth in what he said, but single-parent families can have a hard enough time as it is without discrimination from do-gooders as well as the other sort. I am from a single-parent family, and @Bitter Crank, I find your comments and others like yours very offensive.
I also think we'd be much better off with a far more communal, free-flowing approach to families and child-rearing.
Well hopefully this thread is for the dialogue I started with John to continue. Regardless of the somewhat unfortunate name of the thread, which I did not choose, it should be noted from the dialogue we were carrying in the other thread that "punishment for adultery" is only one of the minor and side issues we were discussing.
I never said it's rational for your partner to commit adultery. That's precisely the point! It's not rational. If they were acting rationally, then they wouldn't do that. If they did adopt the "if the other hurts, I hurt. If I hurt, the other hurts", then they would never do that. But they do it - that means they haven't adopted that - very simple.
Even if you are a progressive, this is not a rational attitude to adopt. Several other progressives have already made this point.
But I have adopted it. I am the injured party in this hypothetical, and you want to injure me further by punishing my other half. But more than that, if my partner shows that they do not want that unity with me, rationally or not, it is hurting myself to even demand that they should do so, and to institute punishment not only hurts me further, but invites us to live in a pretence of unity which does not exist and therefore cannot fulfill.
In medicine, there are quite a few conditions when the immune system turns against your own body. Multiple sclerosis is one such condition, which are often known as autoimmune conditions. Clearly in such cases it is justified to take aim at the immune system and do whatever is possible to stop the negative effect it has on the rest of the body.
There are cases in medicine, when your cells start going rogue. Then they multiply without limit - called cancer. In such a situation it is again right to take aim at your own body in order to put an end to this. Yes you will hurt yourself. But it's necessary for the greater good.
Same in this case. If your partner shows that they engage in activities which hurt you and your love relationship (adultery to be clear), then they have become like a cancer unto love. So love protects itself as best it can - in this case through the law.
Yes indeed. And the best protection is not to carry on living with the cancer, but to get a divorce. Not much point in punishing the cancer though.
Right - the best solution to being robbed by a thief is to get better protection for your home - forget punishing the thief. If we all thought like that, we'd still be in the stone age!
Both my parents have been divorced. So you think that I should think that divorce is a good thing morally speaking? We must learn from other people's mistakes I believe. I understand that it must have been hard for you and your family at times. But don't you think that it would have been better for all of you if you could have grown in a two parent family? Not in your particular circumstances which I don't know, but generally speaking. If your parents both got along, and you grew up in a two parent family - how would you feel in regards to that?
The analogy was making a different point - namely a legal point. We cannot organise society except by law - law means punishments.
Quoting unenlightened
I wouldn't want to live in your society then. It must be a very mean and nasty place.
I'm not legally against divorce, only morally. The reason for it is that I care about love - and love has to be eternal - if it's not eternal, it's not love. This has very little to do with religion. In fact I was an atheist when I first formed these views. If you ever loved someone you would know the experience. I found these values later on best expressed by religion - that is true - but I came to them independently. As G.K. Chesterton said - I tried my best to be a rebel and a heretic! And I ended up finding that my heresy was actually just an inferior version of orthodoxy. So then I just joined them
Yours is the mean and nasty place, that would punish my love if she no longer loves me.
That's. Not. True. You can divorce in my land whenever you want. Your love can divorce you. But she can't cheat on you - there's a very big difference there. And neither can you cheat on her. You can't unlawfully harm each other. But if you no longer want to be together, nothing that the law can do about that, you are free people!
Because I found out that the same moral beliefs I arrived at by myself had already been specified before by religion. The only difference was that I said I didn't believe in God. So then I questioned what it means to believe in God? And I realised that if I uphold those beliefs and morals, then I actually do believe in God - because upholding these is precisely what is meant by believing in God in the first place - doing the will of the Father as Jesus said.
But I arrived at these beliefs from my experience - both of the human world, politics, personal, study and thinking, and so forth.
That part was tongue-in-cheek. I don't really think that you should be punished for your view. At least nothing more serious than a little scolding. I just couldn't resist, even if it has already been said. But I do still of course disagree with your position. And, as for rationality, well, we could discuss the part which rationality plays in ethics, but if it does play a role, I don't think that your position is any more rational than mine. Rather, it boils down to how you and I feel about it, and we obviously feel differently about it.
The authorities have much better ways to spend their time and money. And they shouldn't intrude into private relationships unless the situation warrants it, as in, for example, cases of serious domestic abuse. Cheating on your spouse is not a crime, nor should it be. But of course, you disagree, and I doubt we'll resolve our differences by having a drawn-out discussion.
What do you mean take it metaphorically? I just take it for what it is - namely an expression of universal natural law, which indicates the path one must take to find fulfilment. This Law is the Will of the Father. I believe many other things by faith if I don't understand them - but this is not very relevant for me. For example, it's not relevant if Jesus rose from the dead or he didn't. I believe it by faith, but it's not relevant to me. It's not the essence. If I stopped believing in God and telling everyone on the street that there is no God, my morality would really not change one iota.
But my love had no idea what she was missing 'til she met you.
:-! then she should have first divorced you, then afterwards when she has the idea, possibly renegotiate with you if you were still willing to accept to marry her again. It's simple. There's no reason for her to hurt you. She can do all this in a civilised, humane manner (not that it would be moral, but certainly it wouldn't be the state's business because she wouldn't be hurting you - the state must prevent people from hurting each other, not compel them to behave morally).
What led you to believe that there would be a universal moral law?
Yes she would be hurting me. Do you think divorce is less painful than adultery? I assure you that the rejection is what hurts, not the mere breach of contract.
No, not necessarily. I don't know how you've made that logical leap. It isn't one that I would make. Nothing I said was specifically about divorce, which can be good or bad, or both in varying respects. It was about single-parent families.
Quoting Agustino
Sure.
Quoting Agustino
No, not necessarily, and the assumption that it [i]would[/I] have been annoys me. It might well have been much worse. In a world where all parents are saints, sure, but that is certainly not this world.
Quoting Agustino
But that's just a pointless hypothetical. If all parents were saintly... But they're not.
We wouldn't be discussing punishment.
I'm not saying it would in your particular case. I'm just speaking and thinking generally - as I said if both parents loved each other and got along :)
Quoting Sapientia
Sure, but it does suggest that it would be good if this would be possible. If we could make this be the case for other people it would be good. So it merely gives something to strive for. That's what an ideal is afterall - something one passionately strives for. It's important to understand the good even if we fail to reach it because of the meanness of some people, because of our own mistakes, because of the circumstances - who knows. But why deny that something would be good? I was separated from my first girlfriend long ago because we both moved countries - yet I don't deny that it would have been better had this not happened for example. Sure it's life. But life shouldn't blind us from seeing the good...
I respect your feelings, but that's her free decision to make (and yes I would say that would be immoral for her - but the state has no business legislating that). To restrain that would mean to make her a slave. We can't do that. All we can do as a state is ensure that you are not unlawfully hurt, and she respects you enough to divorce you and be honest with you if she no longer wants to be with you.
I'm not sure what literal talk of a "Heavenly Father" means. Human beings certainly don't live in the sky I mean. So I don't know what such talk means literarily. So I'm not sure if I agree or disagree with literally talking of a Father. I just recognize I don't know what this would mean literarily.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Because I naturally understood that some things have to be the case for a human being to be fulfilled. We all desire to have friends, we all desire to be respected, and so forth. We all desire to be loved, and to love back. This is all very natural - it's the essence of being human. Furthermore, we are social animals - our well-being doesn't depend only on ourselves, but also on what others do. If your partner cheats on you to be on topic, you're not likely to be very happy - it's just the way human beings react most of the time. If you cheat on your partner, they're not likely to be very happy either. So we have to organise ourselves in ways in which we foster mutual well-being and prevent occurences which can be detrimental to it. We have to organise ourselves in win-win situations. The virtues and morality are conducive to such an organisation - they are the systems of belief that makes it most likely for us to live in peace and harmony with each other. That's in a very short form how I cam to understand the universal moral law.
I hesitate to offend your sensibilities, but in the interests of my love, I have to inform you that it was only in the act of adultery that she was awakened to the inadequacies of her relationship with me. But it is generous of you to accept that there are places the state has no business legislating. I would say that the bedroom is one of those places.
I know. I [i]meant[/I] in general. But it is annoying precisely [i]because[/I] there are countless cases like my particular case. And there are in fact many cases [i]much worse[/I] than my particular case. So I don't think that such assumptions and generalisations are particularly helpful, and I don't at all see the point of your qualification. Why would you only want to discuss cases where both parents love each other and get along? Are we talking about Heaven or Earth?
Quoting Agustino
Sure, but, on the whole, it isn't realistic.
Quoting Agustino
The best outcome is what should be strived for, and that isn't necessarily a two-parent family.
Quoting Agustino
I don't, but I'm clarifying what the good [i]is[/I], and contrasting that with simplistic and prejudiced assumptions. The best outcome is of course ideal, and that can be a single-parent family or a family with both parents. It can be a family with married parents or a family with parents who never marry.
Quoting Agustino
I'm not denying anything without good reason. The situation with you and your ex-girlfriend might be completely different from my situation, which you don't know enough about to reasonably use that as an analogy. I could probably think up analogous situations in my life, but I don't really see the point. I've not denied that things [i]can[/I] turn out better if a relationship remains intact. Likewise counterfactually, although that is harder to judge.
Quoting unenlightened
Those two don't chime well together. They sound quite contradicting to me.
My apologies, no doubt they are. I momentarily cast you in the role of hypothetical co-respondent.
Of course I didn't intend to offend you, and I am glad that your single parent did a good job raising you, and he/she deserves a great deal of credit, as all good parents do. Most children in single parent families grow up normally. But...a quarter to a third (in the US) have bad outcomes, which is much higher than bad outcomes for two parent family children. It's a significant difference.
I'm sticking with the judgement that single parenthood in general is not an advantage, is a great burden to the single parent, often results in untoward outcomes, and should not be encouraged through policies. In the United States (with it's diminished and grudging social service system) single parent-headed families are at a significant economic, psychosocial, and educational disadvantage and experience more difficulties than two-parent families.
Just for example...
from a Slate article:
But you were raised in Canada.
First I would inquire why - why don't they want to have friends? Maybe they think their friends will betray them, maybe they think everyone is a self-interested snitch, maybe they are very introverted or just don't like approaching people, maybe they think that by having friends they will lose their independence and so forth. Generally this will have a cause. Once the cause is discovered, it will become crystal clear that it's not friends in themselves that they dislike - but a certain other aspect, whatever that ends up being. Then I will mention to them the goods of friendship - such as mutual help and understanding, bringing the best in each other, and so forth. I would ask them if they would not like to possess those goods. If they do, then we will have to figure out a strategy to get ahold of them. If they don't - then I would ask them if they don't consider such things to be goods. If they don't, then their way of being will be somewhat deviant from the majority of people, which is something that they should keep in mind as they live. They should consider if they want to investigate friendship more, maybe if they do they will appreciate it. If they don't, then they don't - but at least they can make a well informed choice.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Yes but what do you give up in order to have this? Is it worth giving it up? For example, is it worth giving up the feeling of belonging completely to someone with your whole being - is it worth giving up the development of exclusive intimacy with someone? Is it worth giving up the specialness associated with monogamous love? Are all these worth giving up just so you can sleep with more partners? Sex is still sex - all that matters is what do you give up in order to have it?
Quoting Terrapin Station
Sure I never said they did :) - this wasn't about opinion though, it is simply about what is good for a human being, a human being having the tendencies that are natural to the human as a species.
It's a pity that you didn't put the tremendous amount of energy into answering the question of the OP, that you obviously did here with your ,sadly, irrelevant "summary" rather than avoiding that question, precisely by tossing in the gigantic red herring that your "summary" constitutes. Stop playing the politician and trying to discredit your opponent by taking sentences out of context and answer the question and the challenge that has been put before you.
We (or at least I) had already acknowledged and moved well past the 'slanging match" phase of our 'conversation'; so why revisit it, when, since I specifically mentioned that the question of the legal punishment of adultery, which you have advocated, emerged out of the 'Mysticism' thread, people could go and read for themselves and form their own opinions, if they hadn't already, about exactly how the argument developed.
You have stated that you believe it would be a good thing if adultery were to become punishable by law; that question and only that question (and of course any other considerations that are necessarily supportive of, or entailed by that) is the question this thread is intended to address.
Thanks Bitter Crank. While I more or less agree with most what of what you say here; I don't think it is really relevant to the purpose of this thread, which is specifically to consider the question of whether adultery should be punishable by law, as well as attendant questions such as whether, if adultery were to become punishable by law, that change would be good for the stability of society, what we even mean by "stability of society", whether such a law would encourage more people to marry. whether the legal definition of adultery should be extended to de facto relations, and people should be understood to have undertaken and be legally bound by certain vows simply by virtue of living together in a sexual relationship, and so on.
I have said I think there maybe should be a punishment for it. I have explained why, and provided justifications. What more can I do for you?
Quoting John
No I didn't state this. I stated that it very possibly may be a good thing - there's a difference. Secondly, I didn't open this thread - and there's not much to discuss if you never address the reasons and justifications I provided for thinking it may very possibly be good. I'm not interested to detail to you a plan about how the punishment of adultery should be legally implemented. Whether it should be penal, or just a civil offence, whether less people will get married because of it, or more, whether society will be more or less stable, etc. - I don't care about that. I have explained it harms people - do you disagree with that? I have explained the state has a role to prevent actions which cause harm to others - especially if that harm is significant and has large ramifications. Do you disagree with that? I have explained that adultery is an action which fits that criteria - namely it causes harm which has potentially large and severe ramifications. Do you disagree with that? Very well, if you don't, then you agree that maybe adultery should be legally punished in some form.
Now it appears that you want to resile from you previous position; is that perhaps because I have convinced you (although you won't admit it) that it is unsupportable?
In any case, even if you wanted more modestly to claim that it is only maybe a good idea to punish adultery that "maybe" is empty without an argument for how that "maybe" could possibly be a good idea. That is, you would still need to mount an argument as to why anyone should think it would or even could be supportable to punish adultery, as well as provide an account as to how punishment for adultery would be practicable and how it could be justly implemented.
That's true, made up for it.
1. What would be the public policy goal of a law that made adultery a punishable criminal offence?
2. What reasons are there to believe that the goal would be achieved by such a law?
I have a third question which is 'How would achievement of that goal weight up against potential negative public policy impacts of such a law?' But that would be best left until the answers to the first two questions are clear.
OK, so apparently you join Agustino in being for state-sanctioned and prosecuted punishment of adultery. The question is, taking (at least to begin with, and for simplicity's sake) the kind of standard traditional marriage vows as they are given by various Christian denominations, and assuming that they do specifically mention sexual fidelity, as one side of the 'agreement between parties' and the 'signing of the register' as the other part; what legal status do you think the Church-bound exchanging of vows actually has? I mean, there is a separation between church and state, so I cannot see how the specifically Church-bound part of the ceremonial proceedings could rightly be said to be legally binding.
So, in order to implement a law under which adultery could be legally prosecuted, it would be necessary that the participants in the agreement both sign a written document that specifically stated that sexual infidelity constituted a breach of the legal agreement between them.
But then it would also be necessary for the claimant to prove that the defendant had actually committed the act of sexual infidelity. That proof would need to come in the form of independent and unbiased witnesses and/ or audially or visually recorded evidence. Are you beginning to see some of the difficulties here. Also, given the need for such changes to the marriage laws, do you believe that the result would be that more people wished to become married, or would it not be more likely the reverse?
I haven't followed the adultery/mysticism discussion. I did, however, participate in the very long discussion with Agustino in the old Philosophy Forum. Don't know whether you were there for that under a different name, or not at all.
Adultery isn't a good thing, (no one has risen to argue in favor of it, have they?) but all flesh is prone to error, and adultery is one of the top five failings of the flesh. I fervently pray that we do not return to a time when adultery is punishable under civil (or criminal) law. I view adultery as a certainty for a certain percentage of the population, and a consequence of social change more than a driver of social change.
A lot of people who marry are in no wise ready or mature enough to make a lifelong commitment and keep it, without the support of an intact and involved community. Those who are more or less free of the old community ties that bind have very few places to turn to for help when marriage hits the rocks.
If philosophers can not find positive ways to address the problem of adultery, (something beside discussing punishment) then they just aren't trying very hard.
I think you're right that adultery, at least as cheating, is not a good thing. I do think part of the problem also is that it is not a precisely defined thing. Even in the context of a marriage, for example, would it still count as adultery if both parties agree to it? That is, does adultery consist always and only in cheating?
As you point out many people are probably not mature enough to marry. But would that not also often involve them not being mature enough to even recognize that are not mature enough to marry? I think this certainly presents us with one significant face of the problem.
I certainly agree that discussing punishment has little place in any philosophical inquiry concerning adultery, and in fact my motive for creating this thread was precisely the hope that in discussing punishment together it would quickly become obvious just how ridiculous and unsupportable such a notion is and how little place it does have in any meaningful discussion.
These are legal details and quandaries that have to be decided by lawyers, not by us. Again as I said, I don't think any of us are here to detail to you a complete plan, ready to go and be put into the law. We're discussing whether the action is harmful, and whether such an action would deserve punishment under the law - we're not discussing if such punishment would be feasible.
Let's see what I actually said in the previous thread...
Quoting Agustino
Quoting John
Well, well, who is the politician now side-stepping the arguments I have put forth so skillfully in order to gain a rhetorical advantage?
Quoting John
"Maybe" it's a good idea simply means that considering just the action and its consequences, we have ample reasons to punish it. It remains a maybe, because there's a series of other difficulties to overcome until it can be introduced into the law - difficulties that are not my concern, but rather the concern of lawyers. As for mounting an argument, I already did, but you ignore it. So I will post it below for you. Please answer question by question.
Quoting Agustino
It does not follow at all. I have presented the alternative that adultery should be prevented by preventing folk from entering contracts that your own statistics show they in the majority do not wish to, or are unable to, honour.
Yes, just like cancer can certainly be prevented by suicide >:O
Solutions my friend are found WITHIN the framework in discussion - not outside of it. To say you prevent adultery by not getting married is a sophism. We're discussing how adultery is to be prevented within the framework of monogamous marriage here. We're not discussing whether that framework should or should not exist. That question is already presupposed to be answered by "yes it should" in this discussion, because without that presupposition, there is no adultery to even talk about. This should be obvious.
-Deterring adultery, encouraging divorce as a way of separation
-Preventing social conflicts that arise out of adultery, as I'm sure you know, adultery provokes the worst passions in men and women, including anger, hatred, jealousy, etc. which can lead to violence, self-harm, or worse.
-Preventing others from intentionally harming their partners in marriage.
Quoting andrewk
-Clearly if there is a punishment, less people will engage in the activity. This is a well known fact - contrary to what many progressive unbelievers think - which does deter the activity in question whatever it happens to be (here, here, here, here, or here) - this is not to say there will not still be people engaging in it, just that the numbers will be reduced.
-Thus punishment will prevent others from harming each other, and in the case they do, the law will be present to render the justice which they deserve. And if you still have doubts - just look at the trend of adultery. It has increased from about 10% to over 50% in many countries over the past 50 years. Why? Because we don't punish it anymore (either legally or socially)- moreover, we make it to be something cool. This is terrible. Not to mention that now we get some people - like @unenlightened or @Terrapin Station - in fact maybe the two of them should join forces and form a commune, unenlightened can be Krishnamurti and Terrapin Rajagopal perhaps - who even claim we should abolish marriage - why? Because 50% of people don't respect it. They forget that they used to respect it - when we had the required social infrastructure around. Clearly marriage and human nature haven't changed - only our social organisation has. We have removed barriers which previously existed, and this is the result of it.
Quoting andrewk
I don't see any negatives, except that less people will get married at least in the short-term. But that's a good thing. Those people who were never serious about marriage, shouldn't have got married in the first place. The other potential negative is that divorce will become easier. Overall I think the policy would be successful in sorting out the wheat from the chaff, deterring adultery, preventing social harms arising out of it, preventing intentional harm in marriage, protecting the marriages of people who care about them, and rendering justice to those people who are deceived and caused to waste their time with partners who never intended to respect their vows.
Back to your tried and failed analogy.
Quoting Agustino
We agree about the 70%, then and the government could prevent them from marrying by preventing marriage. The presumed 30% of successful marriages will be unaffected, since those people want to remain together and need neither a contract nor the interference of government to do so.
This of course presumes that people who commit adultery were never serious about their relationship, which is obviously not so. People change; one changes and one's partner changes, and even without these changes, one discovers the other in a relationship and not prior to it. One obvious essential to making an informed lifetime commitment that you seem to favour is to have pre-marital sex. Try before you buy needs to be mandatory in the interest of informed consent. Sexual compatibility cannot be judged at arm's length.
This is a presumption.
Quoting unenlightened
The experience of hundreds (or better said thousands!) of years disagrees with you. People generally do prefer if their partner had saved themselves up for them. If they could choose, they would certainly opt for that. Now the viscitudes of life make that difficult for many in practice - especially today. Yet you seem to ignore basic human natural preferences in favor of your ideology. But of course, you are entitled to believe whatever you want.
Quoting unenlightened
Right - because love is a business transaction...
Quoting Agustino
No, that's you. Marriages break up because people do not want to continue with them. There is nothing natural about the preference for virginity; it is all about the maintenance of patrilineal inheritance.
Quoting Agustino
You are the one wanting to enforce contracts, not I.
Yes it's called divorce - not adultery, thankfully.
Quoting unenlightened
When I say natural I simply describe a predisposition of the human organism. Most people would prefer that. Now you prefer your ideology - that it's about the maintenance of patrilineal inheritance. As if premartial sex certainly had anything to do with children. Yes ... that certainly makes much sense, bravo! :-!
Quoting unenlightened
As social policy - not as love.
My point here is just to say that committin adultery already negatively impacts the adulterer in a divorce. As with all contractual breaches, the "punishment" is not of the criminal type (like fines, imprisonment, community service, etc.), but is just one where you get financially the short end of the stick.
At any rate, I'd be more in favor of a law forbidding unsympathetic conduct betwen spouses than in one forbidding adultery because I think that is a greater cause of marital unhappiness. I also think both are equally impossible to enforce.
So all your arguments about the union of two as one, and about love are irrelevant. Your policy is not about promoting love at all, nor is it about preventing the harm of losing love.
When push comes to shove, it becomes about the children of loveless marriages and the social costs of childcare. Time to reformulate your argument.
No - they are not. They are about love. Love requires certain social policies to be made possible and encouraged. Those policies are compatible with love. You seem to think per your ideology that love is something that has nothing to do with society and social policy. This is not true. Empirically it's not true.
In some countries - unfortunately not in all of them. Where I am originally from, in Eastern Europe, divorce in most countries is in the favor of the man, regardless of adultery or not. That's not fair - especially since in those countries men are much more likely to engage in adultery than women. That's a problem. And in some Western countries, adultery or not doesn't make a difference in divorce anymore - which again is a very big problem. And in yet other Western countries, everything is pardonable to women - because they are women - this is again a very big problem. Because ideologists like unelightened run the place in those countries - that's why they are so unenlightened places!
Indeed! Love requires freedom, because love that is coerced is not love but a reaction from fear. Love requires the absence of coercive policies, the absence of legal contracts, the absence above all of fear. So we agree that social policies are required to foster love, but we disagree about what those policies should be. You might have noticed that I have actually advocated a social policy. The policy you propose would serve to confine and thus rather than fostering love would foster fear resentment and hatred.
I don't know why you keep branding me as an ideologue as if what you propose is not based on an ideology. Nowhere have I said that anything, let alone everything is pardonable to women and not to men, nor do I live in a country where any view of the sort is currently widespread, in fact there is no such country. So if you are concerned with 'empirical truth', such claims need to be withdrawn.
Now as to my name; are you claiming to be enlightened? If not then frankly, you needn't bother with the snide innuendo, it is pretty unconvincing, and if you are I will bow to your supreme wisdom and argue no more.
I agree.
Quoting unenlightened
Nope. We disagree here. These social policies don't stop you from loving if that's what you want to do. They stop you from harming others. They are there to protect people from harming each other, not in order to force people to love each other as you seemingly think. If you want, you can divorce. You are absolutely free. No being able to commit adultery doesn't mean you're in chains. It simply means you can't harm your partner - not that you can't leave them.
Quoting unenlightened
Because everything you have said is passed through your anti-patriarchal ideology. It's not considering what are normal human reactions and expectations, which arise naturally in most human beings. It's not grounded in this. It's grounded in a theoretical framework that you have built, which you use to judge reality. It's bad according to you that people desire loyalty, it's bad that they desire their partners to save themselves up, etc. These are unnatural desires according to your framework. But then if we return to reality - the world as it is - we will see that these are perfectly normal, and spontaneously arising desires. Just follow the life of a teenager - even in our modern decadent world. Follow the life of such a young person, and you will see many of these desires arising, sometimes fading, sometimes persisting - sometimes abandoned as unachievable ideals, and so forth. Look at life in its fullness - then you may be able to decide what is worth pursuing.
Quoting unenlightened
Yes tell that to the white, male professor who tried to get a university position and was denied - instead the black female lesbian was accepted. Being male is a disadvantage in many many Western societies now. You seem unable (or better said unwilling) to recognise this. This is comparable to the opposite situation in many Eastern societies where being female is a disadvantage. These are problems that we have to solve. And no - not by denigrating men or women. We have to solve them together - both men and women.
Quoting unenlightened
This - what you said in the beginning - illustrates that you just don't care about the well-being of people. You have become cold-hearted, like other ideologues such as Marx. You judge everything through the narrow prism of your anti-patriarchal lenses.
Huh? Does that relate in some way to This?
Quoting Agustino
Is there some reason why a white male professor should be preferred? And if there has been an instance or even several instances of unfairness to men or to whites or both, does this then become the inversion of patriarchy, the inversion of all that history you are so fond of? Really, your scattergun approach that does not even attempt to address the arguments is too tiresome to me to continue this. Carry on making shit up and proving your points alone, or with someone more patient.
Short comings in terms of experience, career and aptitudes are permitted to the black female lesbian while not to the white male heterosexual.
Quoting unenlightened
No - they should rather be chosen based on their aptitudes, not on their gender, sexual orientation, or skin color as it happens now in many places.
Quoting unenlightened
Right thank you. I was getting a bit tired to talk with someone who never even once responded to the points I have repeatedly made at different times in this conversation.
For example - this point you've never answered - because you can't:
Quoting Agustino
Anyway have fun thinking through your anti-patriarchal ideology :D - maybe one day you'll be able to reach the point where at least it is coherent.
You have a prejudice against white, heterosexual males sir. I don't have any - I treat all people equally.
To varying degrees infidelity does harm people. But then so, to some degree, however small, does all social interaction. How much harm have you caused to others on these forums by disagreeing with them? If you are unfaithful and don't tell your partner, does that harm them? Even if you do tell them, and they leave you in consequence, might that not harm you more than them? In relationships, what people want and expect, rightly or wrongly, from one another is different each time, and that includes relationships online. As I said before, I agree that deliberate harm should be punishable.
I have only been speaking about infidelity in the passage above, charitably broadening the scope. If you want to say that adultery should be legally punishable then you would need to determine that it actually constitutes a legal breach of contract under current laws. Bigamy is illegal; but I would say that adultery does not constitute a legal breach of contract, but it has for a long time merely been grounds for divorce. Nowadays divorce is much more easily obtained, you can be granted it on the grounds that the relationship no longer works for you. Consider this situation; a couple are married under the new marriage laws that sanction punishment of adultery by law. They love one another very much, but in a moment of weakness the women meets a man she is highly attracted to, and in a moment of weakness, allows herself to be seduced. She feels terrible remorse afterwards and suffers terrible agonies of conscience; she cannot decide whether to tell her husband as she knows it will hurt him terribly, and she loves him so much she cannot bear to see him suffer, but, on the other hand the guilt is eating her up inside and causing her great pain. Should she tell him? He will not suffer unless she does tell him. Is it more selfish of her to tell him in order to alleviate her own suffering than it is to suffer in silence to protect him? Unbeknownst to her, someone spied her infidelity, filmed it and reports it to the police. In the meantime she tells her husband, and he, although angry, loves her so much he forgives her. The police come to arrest her, and the man says he does not want to press charges, because he loves his wife and understands that she is only human. The police say that she must be charged under the new laws and spend some time in prison to set an example an example for others.
Quoting AgustinoAny new criminalisation of any activity will have negatives, amongst which are:
- the costs to society of detecting, arresting, trying, convicting and punishing those convicted under the law
- the inevitable occurrence of erroneous convictions
- displacement effects, whereby a reduction in the proscribed activity causes an increase in another, more harmful activity. An easily foreseeable one here is an increase in spousal rape in the case of partners with highly mismatched sexual appetites.
- providing a breeding ground for organised crime. We only need consider the Prohibition era and the impact of the US's puritanical 'war on drugs' to see how criminalisation of activities generates a boom in organised crime that has a much bigger harmful impact than the problem they were intended to solve.
- forcing those that do the proscribed activity to take risks they otherwise would not take, at risk to themselves and others. A good example of this is how the criminalisation of drugs makes taking small recreational amounts of drugs much more risky because one cannot know whence they came or have a reliable way of knowing they are unadulterated and of a known concentration.
I agree with you, as would many on here I imagine, that adultery is often harmful and immoral, and best discouraged.
So is calling somebody an idiot.
But most harmful and immoral things are not illegal, because making something the subject of criminal law has huge costs and consequences. These things need to be weighed up with enormous care and diligence. To just say 'This law will discourage that harmful activity and clearly there are no downsides' is naive and dangerous in the extreme. It reveals a complete failure to understand the complexity and importance of the development of public policy.
This is not a left vs right or conservative vs progressive issue. I feel the same way about some laws that emanate from the progressive movement ('my' movement). In my country we have laws against racial and religious vilification. While I wish racial and religious vilification to be strongly discouraged, I think it is a bad idea for there to be laws specifically against it, because there are potential negative consequences that I do not think have been sufficiently taken into account. There is a very aggressive public commentator that lost a court case against him for racial vilification of indigenous people. While what he said is loathsome, I think it is regrettable that the response to it was via a court case rather than by public condemnation.
It seems to me that the arguments you have made in favour of criminalising adultery, or analogs thereof, can be applied just as easily to the harm of calling someone an idiot. Would you then also support the criminalisation of that activity?
I said significant, long-lasting and unrepairable harm.
Quoting John
Okay a few points. First your narrative is quite unrealistic - most people committing adultery do not have such a character. Second of all your story is very abstract - it's very very unlikely that it's "a moment of weakness". You know, a moment is not enough for adultery to take place. Suppose it's true that she is attracted to him. She can't just jump and have sex with him in the middle of the office for example - she must first talk to him - probably much more than once. All this time what is her conscience doing? In her mind she knows she is attracted to him and thus doing wrong. Then she actually has to arrange with him to do it somewhere - say a hotel. What is her conscience doing on that psychologically long way to the hotel - and even in actually arranging it? In most people fear they are doing something wrong intervenes. Then when she reaches she must undress herself - what is her conscience doing? Sleeping? Then she actually has to engage in quite a few things such as foreplay and kissing before getting to the actual intercourse. This means she must look at herself naked before that man, This is not instantaneous. So in that time - what is her conscience doing? Then she must actually go through the act! Is her consciousness in a comma?? A moment of weakness - give me a break. Such things are intentional - they are not moments of weakness. If she is say drunk - thats not a moment of weakness that would qualify as rape most likely. It's like murder - can't be done in a moment of weakness - most plan it, and later they may justify it as moment of weakness etc. Anyway - if thats the case she morally has a duty to tell her husband - because he must have a right to choose if he wants to remain with such a woman or not. Also she morally has a duty to do something about herself and fix whatever issues she has.
Now, from a legal point of view, I never specified the nature of the punishment. You assume the punishment is a prison sentence and that the police can persecute by itself, even if the victim is against such prosecution - suggesting that adultery has been made a criminal offence. I have nowhere detailed this and i would probably disagree with it. Im not sure on the nature of the punishment, I simply said there should be one given the tremendous harm of the act.
I will say this quickly - a very big problem is that social condemnation and disapproval for adultery is vanishing. So I disagree on the point that this mechanism works. We have a problem precisely because it doesn't work. Hence the rising rates of adultery. We have movies and a culture which not only don't condemn adultery, but actually encourage it, either by making something of a joke out of it, or by diminishing its consequences. What is clear is that we have to do something to lower the rates of adultery - if social disapproval is the way, how do we implement it in a culture which makes a "cool" thing out of adultery?
Then I don't agree that adultery, for the most part, qualifies.Quoting Agustino
How do you know what the characters of "most people" are? Have you met "most people" and lived with them enough to know what they are like?
In any case, it was only offered as one possible kind of scenario that could result if the law is allowed to intervene in people's private lives.
If you loved someone and they committed an infidelity, would you be able to find it in your heart to forgive that? Would you still want to be with them, or are you so unforgiving that you would throw away your love? Who do you love, your beloved or your image of how she must be? What would hurt you more; the fact of the infidelity, or the fact that you could not forgive, and threw your love away?
The law has no business interfering in affairs of the heart; and I cannot see that anything but more trouble and heartache would come from it. Human beings are not perfect when it comes to emotion and desire; that may offend your purist sensibilities; but I think it is something you will be forced to deal with.
It's an observation considering the people i have met and interacted with. Do you disagree with it?
Quoting John
Depends on the particular situation. Generally if I have to pick an answer I would say that i would not forgive it. Most people don't change their characters and thats just a pragmatic lesson we have to learn. I'd look for someone else. But if despite this she made sacrifices, showed true repentance, showed that she was willing to do whatever it takes to remedy her character and make herself a better person, showed that she really hated herself for doing such a thing, and showed evidence of never doing such a thing again then I would very possibly end up forgiving her. But as you see it's not so simple to give an answer. It depends on the people. If she's some feminazi who says she can do whatever she wants with her body, that she did nothing wrong, that she felt ignored, etc. then definitely i won't forgive her. She must be sorrowful and repentant to be forgiven at minimum.
Im not home I'll deal with other parts of your post later.
I disagree with any claim that you could possibly know what most people are like.
Quoting Agustino
Again with the unwarranted generalizations. There's no point for me in even attempting to have a discussion with someone who insists on relying for the argument on such groundless generalizations, because nothing I say could possibly make any difference to such a person; they will just keep on making that same claims, which amount to saying simply "I'm right, and you're wrong".
No, I would forgive or not forgive based on my love and on my ethics regarding forgiveness, not on some generalized expectation about her character. In order words I would risk being hurt in the name of love.
There's a difference between risking to be hurt in the name of love, and being stupid. The pragmatic prejudice (which does have a place for most conservatives, by the way) isn't contrary to my ethics - it merely helps one sort the wheat from the chaff in order to avoid behaving stupidly. We are creatures of flesh and blood - we have to act pragmatically, we can't just act ideologically following X ethics without any other rules which govern practical behaviour.
Now if person X cheats on me, then I have misjudged their character - I thought they were someone else, but they're not. I was wrong. So nothing changed about my love - my love is still there, except that they turned out not to be the person I loved - I had made a mistake in judgement. Now if someone cheats on you, you forgive, they do it again, you forgive again etc. - that's not called taking a risk in the name of love - it's called stupidity. Love is about caring for the other as much as you care for yourself - this presupposes that you must first love yourself. Hence "you shall love your neighbour as yourself". Of course erotic love is a special type of love - but it is built upon this neighbourly love.
Quoting John
I think it does due to the nature of it. It's a betrayal of someone out of a life-long deal - and it's not like divorce - it's also insulting and disrespectful to the other person. It's not simply an assertion of your freedom to be your own person and do as you wish (as divorce would be) - it's a direct and intentional disrespect of the commitment you have to the other (who moreover is someone you claim to love) - a mockery of it. That is precisely why adultery leads to the creation of probably one of the most poisonous mixes of emotions - more poisonous than the reaction you would have if your lover were to steal quite a bit of your money and spend them without your knowledge for example. Have you not heard or read stories about people who killed themselves or others due to adultery - or otherwise behaved violently, etc.? I've read and heard quite a few. This shows that such activity is very dangerous, as it can very easily escalate to worse sins. For example, one of my neighbours back when I was a child attempted to kill herself (although thankfully she survived) because of her husband's repeated affairs which she couldn't even bear the thought of. I would say in order of moral gravity it would go like murder (with violence and other direct privations here including self-harm) -> adultery -> theft. Adultery is very likely to lead to what's included in the category of murder here - much more likely than say theft (depending of course on what's stolen, how valuable it is perceived to be, etc.). But all sins are likely to escalate though to worse sins - some moreso than others. That's why I have said adultery means social instability - because it promotes very dangerous emotions. That's exactly why something must be done to prevent, limit and control its occurence.
Quoting John
Right - that's why you can divorce. You can't disrespect and harm your partner by intentionally and unlawfully breaking your marriage vows - but that's different. That's there not to be involved in the affairs of the heart between you and your partner, but to protect both of you from unlawfully hurting each other. If the affairs of the heart between you two determine that you should divorce nothing wrong with that - you go ahead and do it.
Everyone is a different case; that's why I abhor generalizations about 'how one should be in such and such a situation'. Emotional relations are really a matter for the people involved to work out and work through; there may be some, or even a lot of emotional pain; but, hey, that's how people grow and mature. Why would I want to protect anyone from that kind of invaluable experience?
I think that if people are very religious or very idealistic, and they want to get married in the traditional way and take all the traditional vows then that's fine and they should take it seriously. but quite often people who do this are just kids, not very mature or emotionally well-seasoned at all. I would certainly never advocate adultery. Personally I don't have much desire for casual sex; and when it has found me, I mostly haven't found it very satisfying and it certainly doesn't usually live up to the excited expectations it can occasion.
As to divorcing someone; I have done that twice in relationships where my wife did not want to end it. And I can tell you that caused significant suffering to the other (and to myself on account of intense feelings of guilt at having not fulfilled their expectations). I wouldn't want to go through that again. I think if a partner 'cheated on me' now and told me; that would be a 'walk in the park' by comparison, to be honest.
That ignores aspects of oneself, and promotes degrading tendencies in the loved one - so that's really a lose-lose situation. You don't help bring out the best in the very person you claim to love - that in-itself is replaced with some petty sentimentalism where you do whatever makes your loved one comfortable instead of whatever is good for them, even though it might make them uncomfortable. There's nothing good in such an attitude I don't think - and I don't think such an attitude can be called love.
Quoting John
That depends - jealousy, like all other emotions, has situations when it is objectively justified, and situations when it is a passion that one should eliminate. If using money that you have stolen from me you buy yourself a big mansion and I feel jealous - then that feeling of jealousy is objectively justified, because you have acquired something for yourself in an unjust way. You are enjoying what rightfully belongs to me. On the other hand if I were to get jealous of you because my wife speaks to you on the phone or something like that - then of course it's not objectively justified. But to be jealous when it is not justified is a wrong. And the opposite is also true - NOT to feel jealous when it is objectively justified is also a malfunctioning of the mind/organism. One shouldn't cower from one's emotions - as one's emotions are useful guides. In adultery one feels jealous because what belongs to them (at least while they're married) - the love, devotion and intimacy of another - is given to someone else. This is an objectively valid feeling of jealousy. If one were to NOT feel jealous, then there would be a problem - probably the person in question is repressing their natural feelings because they are painful - that's a problem. Emotional dullness is not to be mistaken for virtue and wisdom.
Quoting John
People only have to be protected from unlawful harm. That's why you don't outlaw divorce - which is still a harm. But that doesn't mean they shouldn't be protected from intentional harm - like adultery - which is different.
Quoting John
No one claimed it's an easy experience, I don't think divorce is moral (good) either for that matter. Quite a few people from my family, including my parents have divorced. But there's nothing the law can do here. And your choices are your choices. Morally though we should condemn divorce (at least in many cases - certainly not in all) - but there's nothing we can legally do about it.
But, if two people love one another, however they might express that love and organize their lives together, disapproval from you based on a generalization about what you think love is, or even more particularly, based on what you think love is for you, in other words what you call love or think about love will be irrelevant to them.
I disagree entirely about jealousy. It is a negative emotion that everyone would be better off not experiencing, if that were possible. The issue has nothing to do with whether it is justified or not; jealousy has no need of justification, to speak of justification is a category error, the point is whether or not jealousy is felt and what one does with the feelings; whether one submits to them or not.
You keep speaking of adultery as "intentional harm". This is wrong because it ignores a distinction between deliberate malicious harm, and harm which may be able to be anticipated, but which one would certainly not wish to inflict, but which one may in any case inflict due to failure to avoid the action that causes the harm.
To me the fact that you want to morally disapprove of things in general betrays a misplaced tendency to generalize.that would ignore the nuanced differences of individual cases. In any case, I don't imagine what I have said will take any effect on you, so having said about as much on this topic as I am motivated to say, given my flagging interest in it; I think we are going to have to rest content with mutual disagreement.
It's not about what I think love is, it's about what idea of love stands to scrutiny. Loving someone and doing whatever makes them feel comfortable doesn't stand to scrutiny. For example, if they should get a surgery, but they are so afraid of surgeries that they prefer to die rather than get the surgery, then it is not love to agree with them and let them go the way which makes them feel most comfortable.
Quoting John
Like all other human emotions, every emotion has a purpose. It's like claiming fear is bad. No - not all fear is bad. Some fear is bad, when it arises in circumstances in which it shouldn't, or when it impedes one from acting in a beneficial way. Likewise for jealousy. Now - I haven't said that if jealousy arises in an objectively valid situation - one in which you should feel jealous - then you should keep yourself glued to that jealousy. Absolutely not - in fact you should do things which will remove that feeling of jealousy. In the example with the mansion I gave - something I could do that would remove that feeling of jealousy is turn you in to the police for stealing my money. Then I would have done all that I could have done to render justice. If for whatever reason the police fails afterwards to bring you to justice, then obviously there's no point in me feeling jealous. It doesn't help me or motivate me to do anything useful or good. All that it would do is make me feel angry. So in that case one should eliminate the emotion - by understanding that it doesn't play a useful role anymore.
This is a distinction without practical ramifications - and thus a false one. If one doesn't wish to inflict that harm, then one would not do the action, regardless of other benefits. Very simple. The truth is if one does the action, then one wishes to inflict that pain provided that X Y Z rewards to the action exist. People's desires cannot be separated from the way they act. This post-fact rationalisation that people engage in - oh I didn't really want to do that, etc. - that's just self-deception because they want to maintain a good image of themselves, in their own eyes.
Quoting John
Very well.
Georgia's rule (where I live), which eliminates the right to alimony where a spouse has committed adultery, is not based upon progressive principles of egalitarianism, but the rule is instead rooted in strict morality. It's largely punitive, stating that if the woman wants to cheat, she's on her own to figure out her own finances. I'm not saying it's necessarily unfair, but it is punitive because it looks neither to her financial needs nor the husband's ability to pay.
My own view is that I can't really see generally where the division of marital property should be affected by adultery, nor do I think that child custody should necessarily be affected by it. Only if some nexus can be shown between the adultery and the reason for the court's decision should it matter. For example, if you could should that your wife spent large sums of money traveling with her lover, then you should get more of the marital assets because she has already used some of them inappropriately. I don't think though that you should just be able to get her car just because she's a cheater. I also think that if you can show her parenting skills are suspect based upon something that arose out of the adultery (like she left the kids unattended to screw the pool boy), then custody issues could be affected, but there needs to be that sort of evidence. The question of custody is always what's in the best interests of the child, as opposed to using the child as a means to punish one of the parties for misconduct.
In the final analysis, there's no legislation that can be passed to make people honest, to love their significant others, or to be better people. Legislating goodness never works.
Indeed. Legislation is just for discouraging actions which harm others. Not in order to ensure goodness - goodness isn't the absence of harm, but something positive in its own right.
Quoting Hanover
This seems like a very good law in most cases.
Quoting Hanover
Why just a woman? Why doesn't it apply to a man committing adultery as well? Or does it, but it most often ends up being women who would be accorded? The law should apply uniformly.
Quoting Hanover
Well clearly adultery is a very important criteria which must be taken into consideration especially for child custody. The child should not remain with an immoral parent. Are you telling me you think that shouldn't play a role in deciding who the child remains with - the moral capacity of the parent to provide a good, moral education to the child? That is of foremost importance. But I agree that adultery is not the only factor included there, but it certainly is one of them. Second the property should be so divided such that the parent who has custody is given a larger share of the martial property or alimony in order to be able to care for the child. Obviously this should not be exaggerated. Say the husband owns 50 million USD, and his wife is a stay at home mother, and he cheats on her. Obviously in such a case the wife should be provided with sufficient to take care of the children - say 5 million USD with no future payments as this is more than enough. But if the husband is a poor guy, then he would still need to support the wife throughout.
Furthermore the point of the law is precisely to punish as well as to repair damage which can be repaired. If you steal my car and you get caught, you don't just give it back to me, you go to jail - or in some places you can agree to settle it with me for sufficient sum of money (and my car on top). So same in the case of adultery - perhaps the punishment should be financially harsh on the adulterer. This is not about legislating goodness - because again, just because the husband or wife in question don't commit adultery doesn't mean they are good to each other. They could very well be very mean and nasty to each other. But there's a lawful way to exist such a partnership - divorce - which does not involve harming each other through adultery. So the punishment would be precisely to discourage existing a partnership through adultery (which can be very harmful), and instead encouraging divorce.
I have provided a few studies which seemed to conclude so.
Quoting andrewk
As I have said before I disagree - this isn't true. We live in a culture which is highly tolerant - even encouraging of adultery. They call it open-mindedness, sexual liberation, and so forth. If we had lived in a culture in which there was strong social disapproval and guilt over adultery, then I would agree no law would even be in the question. But fact of the matter is adultery rates are growing - we have to do something about them. It seems our culture isn't capable to deal with it anymore.
Quoting andrewk
The purpose of punishment is not for people to overcome their temptations. Punishment does not seek to make people moral - and this is very important. It seeks to discourage an activity which is harmful to others and to the rest of society. There's always divorce if partners want to separate in order to be with someone else. That's the lawful way to do it. If X divorced Y in order to have sex with, marry, or live with Z there would be no problem from a legal point of view.
Quoting andrewk
I agree.
Quoting andrewk
I don't think this would be a problem. If it is a problem, then we already have it, since our society is failing to minimise cases of mismatched sexual appetites.
Quoting andrewk
Maybe - but it's different than in the case of objects. Drugs, alcohol, etc. are objects. Adultery is an action requiring two.
Quoting andrewk
Well this is precisely the point - making it difficult for someone to do what is against the law.
Quoting andrewk
Very different degrees of harm here.
Quoting andrewk
Yes you are correct here, and this is perhaps the stronger point you raise.
Quoting andrewk
The harm of calling someone an idiot is small. It's not breaking a life-long agreement or deal. It's not exciting as many dangerous passions as adultery is. It's not likely to affect other parties except the two people involved. Adultery is something that affects marriage - which is a long-term agreement, which entails its own expectations, and involves other third parties - the families and the children. The two are not comparable. As I said, adultery is quite possibly worse than theft - depending of course how you steal, who you steal from, what you steal, etc. (I could see situations where theft is worse than adultery - but I'm talking generally)
It applies equally to men and women.
Quoting Agustino
The question is what is in the best interests of the child period. To the extent the cheating parent's ability to best provide for the child's welfare is truly impeded by his adultery, I'd agree it should be considered. I would be opposed, however, to moralizing for its own sake, as if we think we've accomplished something to re-declare adultery bad. That is, if cheating mom is the better parent all things considered, I wouldn't concern myself too terribly with her infidelity to dad.Quoting Agustino
Georgia law, and I suspect most, simply state that the assets and liabilities be divided equitably, which means fairly, not equally. All that means is that we must trust our judges to have the wisdom to figure out what is fair and not. I'm not objecting to your considerations, and think that every case would have its own peculiarities to be considered.Quoting Agustino
The purpose of civil law isn't to punish, except in the unusual instance where punitive damages are sought, but that concept doesn't exist in a divorce proceeding. Punishment is a criminal concept, and, to the extent anyone still cares, adultery is on the books as a criminal act in many states to this day. I doubt you're going to find any actual prosecutions for it, though because most don't consider it a matter for the state's interest.
But do you recognize that her immorality is one of the factors to consider when making such a decision? Of course it's not the only one, maybe the father is a dangerous drunk for example, or a thief, etc. in which case obviously the cheating mother should get the children. Or even more - nothing wrong morally with the father, but he's an invalid and can't take care of the children - obviously the mother should still take the children - even though it is very unfair to the father, and I would expect some financial compensation from the mother for that.
Quoting Hanover
Well most legal codes have taken a very dim view of it all things considered. Anyway - in my mind it can be potentially very harmful and could very well be in need of punishment. You know that adultery rates are growing. From 10% up to 50% in the last 50 years - that's a problem, and we as a society need to do something about it.
Quoting Hanover
If the state has a duty to protect citizens from serious, long-lasting harm, which is irreperable and can have strong consequences in the life of either of the spouses (or their children, or their families) - then it certainly is of the interest of the state, especially if it becomes a widespread problem as now - regardless of the liberal progressives who dogmatically claim the state should have nothing to do with it.
There's no way that you can know this. And yes they could be deviant relative to the norm.
Well, monogamy for one. ;-)
I'd say that's worth giving up. People are not property to other people. And otherwise, it's just restating that a relationship isn't monogamous.
Exclusive intimacy, yes, definitely. Again, that's basically just noting that it's not a monogamous relationship. By being monogamous, by the way, you're giving up the development of intimacy with multiple persons.
Likewise, we can say, "Is monogamy worth giving up the specialness associated with polyamory?"
There's no such thing outside of particular humans' opinions about that.
This assumes this sort of intimacy can be developed with multiple people at the same time or one after another. I disagree. The breaks that occur from one partner to the other stops this intimacy from ever gaining real and developing depth. I have no qualms with your choice, but you should at least be aware what you're giving up. This isn't a match "I'm giving up more than you" etc. It's just looking at the facts honestly.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Polyamory doesn't have specialness - it has quantity. This is the quantity vs quality fight.
Based on the simple fact that less time with someone, and less focus on someone, will result in less familiarity and intimacy. Intimacy takes time to develop. That is obvious - if you refuse to accept something that is simply obvious then what I will tell you is be more attentive to your own experiences... We don't need no scientific study to show us this - we already know it.
This may be a factor; but it also depends on how open you and the other are. If two people are very open, intimacy my be established extremely quickly; and I know this from experience.
Also if people are truly secure in themselves they will not be threatened by, and thus will not become jealous about, the other's intimacy with others. Really the wider spread intimacy can become the better it will be for society.
If you genuinely believe the difference between beating your partner and committing adultery "has no practical ramifications" then I have little confidence that anything I say will make be heard.
This is an outright lie. Cite where I have said that "the difference between beating your partner and committing adultery 'has no practical ramifications'"
Again - nothing about being threatened here. Your words betray a liberal progressive ideology, regardless of your protests to the contrary. Jealousy is not a reaction to feeling threatened. That's not what jealousy is. When people feel threatened they react by anger or by fear (fight or flight) - not by jealousy. Jealousy is a reaction to perceived injustice regarding oneself (as opposed to a reaction to perceived injustice regarding other people). Because it is PERCEIVED injustice, I can have a problem with my judgement and perceive an injustice where there is none - or I can accurately see to the core of a situation. What is rightfully mine is taken away. The exclusivity of my marriage and relationship - which was rightfully mine - is taken away - hence I would feel jealous. This is an entirely normal reaction - in fact something would be wrong with my sense of justice if I didn't react so.
I'm not claiming that it's impossible to feel happy about your partner enjoying themselves physically with another person. Just the same way I'm not claiming that you can't laugh upon hearing news of one of your parents' death for example. Only that such reactions would be unnatural and harmful - they would underline a repression of your own nature - because you are afraid of the pain that feeling your jealousy or sadness in the case of the parents' example would imply. I've talked with a few psychologists about this - it's a very real phenomenon in modern societies. We condemn emotions like jealousy, because we're afraid of having the plague us. But jealousy, like all other emotions, has its usefulness in guiding us to reach the optimal state of well-being. Modern ideologues adopt laughter - or flippancy - when discussing moral matters such as adultery. They turn them into some laughing matter, into some joke. Why? Because they want to run away from the potential negative emotions that they would perceive if they were patient and open to the experience.
Quoting Agustino
You keep talking about emotions "being justified'; this is a category error emotions cannot be justified or unjustified; it is thoughts and actions that may be justified or unjustified. If someone stales from you you would angry, not jealous, in any case. I agree that emotions such as anger and fear be useful. If one felt not fear, one might become reckless. for example, But even there the emotion should be well-tempered such that it has no hold over you, but merely informs your action in a positive way. I can see that anger might play such a role in some circumstances. But I fail to see any positive role for jealousy, which si not a pure emotion like fear and anger, but comes form the unhealthy habit of comparing yourself or your circumstances to others' own. One does not need that emotion to , for example be able to clearly see social injustices. jealousy is a very personally focused emotion that constricts the being; whereas as fear and anger are not necessarily like that at all. Once again, you are falling into an error of generalization in claiming that emotions, simply by virtue of being emotions, may all be understood in analogous ways.
Regardless of what you say - you're not justified to laugh if you hear from a credible source that your father has died for example. So emotions are - in practice - justified or unjustified.
Quoting John
No - read what I wrote. Jealousy is a perceived injustice with regard to the self brought about on the self by another, as opposed to with regard to others.
Quoting John
Thanks for recognising! :D
And to reduce you to absurdity - if jealousy was useless, and there was nothing good in it, then Nature would have never placed such an emotion in man's heart. It's there because it is useful. That's the clearest proof of it.
That just is feeling threatened. When you perceive injustice in regard to others and feel rightly angry about it, the focus is not on self, and not on any threat to self. With jealousy the focus is most definitely on self, and the threat to self. You don't need jealousy to see any injustice, whether to self or others, and become angry about on the basis of principle, then the anger is the same if it is someone else being unjustly done by. So, jealousy is useless, unnecessary and self-focusing in an unhealthy way, pure and simple.
Jealousy is what you feel when you perceive an injustice with regards to self. Anger is what you feel when you perceive an injustice with regards to others. Jealousy is just anger due to an injustice that happened to oneself. When you're jealous you're angry and upset, and seek to take back what was rightfully yours. Maybe to clarify even more - jealousy occurs when someone else unlawfully and unjustly uses something that belongs rightfully to you in order to extract some benefit for themselves, and prevents you from using it.
Quoting John
Yes I feel angry if I see him steal it. But if later I see him using it and extracting happiness out of it (happiness which I should have extracted and not them to be clear) then I will feel jealous.
Your are reducing yourself to absurdity, no one else. When you have no argument you resort to insult; I had hoped we had gotten past that.
What is your argument for claiming that all emotions must be useful. Is the desire to have sex with people other than your partner useful according to you?
There is no such desire. There is a desire for sex okay? Now that desire can be channeled through a moral path or through an immoral one. What does a moral one mean? One which is in accord with both one's spiritual and one's physical nature - which brings harmony amongst those two. If we were merely animals, then shagging everyone you saw wouldn't be a problem. It's a problem precisely because we have spiritual desires - such as the desire for intimacy. A moral way of being is one which reconciles the desire for intimacy with the desire for sex - and fulfils both.
I can only be quick because I have to go out, but there is the "ownership" inherent within you postion. In someone sleeping with another, what is supposedly yours has been taken away. You don't understand adultary to be a betrayal of a promise to you, but rather a failure to have something you are entitled to because you own it.
Jealousy is terrible because it amounts to thinking you own other people. Pain at betrayal is fine, and people who ignore it do so at their own peril, but it manifests through the act of another not by who they own. Adultary hurts because someone used their freedom to betray, not because they belong to someone.
Of course, because they have freely given themselves over to me, and have not decided they no longer want to do this yet - they haven't divorced me obviously.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
If they divorced me, okay, and then they went around sleeping with whoever, I wouldn't feel jealous, because they're not rightfully mine anymore. There's no question of my ownership here - two lovers own their bodies in common, like the communists own property.
Another category error; laughing when hearing your father has died is an action, not an emotion.
Quoting Agustino
Again, no. Jealousy is a possible feeling regarding a perceived injustice. It is precisely because you focus on the fact that the injustice has been done to you, rather than someone else, that produces the emotion of jealousy. But, actually I think that it is not so much the perceived injustice but the fear of what you might lose on account of it, which someone else will gain that makes you feel jealous. The think about jealousy is that it is not in regard to an act, but is always focused on a person in relation to oneself. That is why it is an unhealthy and unproductive emotion, because it is always on account of comparing yourself to another.
Yes that's just a recitation of the definition of jealousy - obviously.
Quoting John
This is not true. If after you steal my money you buy yourself a nice car, and I see you everyday passing my house in it and enjoying yourself then I will feel jealous of you. There's no fear of losing anything there.
Quoting John
It's not a comparison - regardless of what Osho has told you - and I know because his books (and I've read most of them) were the very first philosophy books I read - when I was 11 - very very long ago! This is exactly his idea. But he is wrong - there is no comparing of self with another in jealousy. There is a comparing between the self as possessing what is rightfully belonging to it, and the self as lacking this possession due to another. That's all.
I don't disagree Agustino; I am not promoting indiscriminate shagging at all. Personally I would have no interest in such a thing. But what you fail to understand is that all people are different, and that for some it may be possible to have an emotionally healthy, and not merely animal, desire to have sex with more than one intimate partner. I think that emotion could be useful in that context for such people, but you could never agree with that on account of your puritanical morality.
Edit: I corrected this because I had inadvertently addressed it to Willow.
Do you know what Puritanical means? It means to be against sexual enjoyment. Does it seem to you like I'm against all forms of sexual enjoyment? No - so therefore don't spit out propaganda around here.
pj??r??tan?k(?)l/
adjective
adjective: puritanical
having or displaying a very strict or censorious moral attitude towards self-indulgence or sex.[/b]
[b]adjective
1.
very strict in moral or religious matters, often excessively so; rigidly austere.
2.
(sometimes initial capital letter) of, relating to, or characteristic of Puritans or Puritanism.[/b]
My usage is perfectly in accordance with ordinary usage, and applicable to what you espouse; so don't complain.
Not number 2 above. That is the sense I am not using.
That's still ownership, Agustino. If someone or the world takes it away, it seen as a violation of what someone's property. The anti-thesis of intimacy-- "You are mine regardless of anything"-- which takes no consideration of the person involved.
That's still a problem with "common property." It can't track individuals and how the world matters to them. So caught up in what you gain, "I have a right to this hammar. It's is common property." You cannot see any impact on another person.
You will take the hammer you own as insurance in case something breaks, while another is left without the tool to finish their house.
Much more to say, but that will have to wait till I get back.
The jealousy comes on account of the insecurity of feeling that he has gained at your expense; which is certainly accurately classed as a kind of fear of losing, of being the loser..
It's not very strict are you out of your mind? >:O You gotta be joking. I espouse beliefs that all Muslims, Christians (authentic ones), Buddhists, Hinuds, and Jews believe. Do you think what so many people believe, and have believe through the centuries is "very strict in moral or religious matters, often excessively so" - that's impossible! Since the majority of men have believed so, it cannot be "very strict" because we set the standard of strictness based on the majority. Very strict is saying that you should never have sex. Or that you should never get married. Or that you should abstain from sex with your spouse except certain days, etc.
There is no insecurity - what insecurity would there be? There's no fear that he has gained at my expense - the whole problem is that he is enjoying what is rightfully mine, without my permission.
Yes, and those kinds of beliefs may be understood to be more or less puritanical in the the sense in which I was using the word.
How is that possible if those beliefs - the beliefs of the majority through history - and of most major moral codes out there - form the standard by which things are judged? If I judge them using themselves as standard, then they are normal - not Puritanical.
Yes, which makes you the loser; you are afraid of being the loser, of what others might say, of losing your standing, and so on.
As far as I am concerned those beliefs may have had their social uses in their day ( for a start there was no reliable contraception or social welfare back then); but things have changed and now they are no longer useful, just puritanical throwbacks.
I never said that you think of those beliefs as puritanical; although of course I believe you should, if you want to be a reasonable and rational modern person whose moral beliefs are in harmony with, and therefore useful in regard to, the times.
No I'm not afraid of being any sort of loser - how others perceive me has nothing to do with it - I'm just angry and upset that an injustice has been committed - in this case to myself - and therefore I look to remedy this and bring about justice. Would you say for example if I see a man suffering in the street and I help him that I helped him because I'm afraid I may one day end up like him? That would be absurd!
Yes they are useful in developing spiritual intimacy among other things. Of course you can peddle this liberal progressive ideology, which is what you are in fact doing, even without knowing it. It's so ingrained.
If being in accord with the times means being a liberal progressive, no I have no such interest, sorry to tell you mate :D I would rather preserve the light of Truth through this Dark Age.
Not convincing; if you were just angry and upset as you would be about any injustice that has been committed; then there would simply be no feeling of jealousy, but rather just of righteous anger.
Which is exactly the same thing as jealousy. What else do you think jealousy is? Jealousy is a sub-species of anger. It's with regards to self. Whereas anger is with regards to everyone else.
There is no need to apologize for your failings Agutsino; just try to see things in a more rational light.
You keep trying to cast me as a liberal progressive; this is wrong, a reflection of your own prejudice, and is just a poor substitute for your lack of good arguments.
Jealousy is a kind of sub-species of anger yes; which is just what I have been saying. So, now you apparently are agreeing with me.
It is also an unhealthy self-focused sub-species which is not useful precisely because when needed the more healthy emotion of anger can do all the work that is necessary or desirable.
No I don't try to cast you as one - you are one. It's a simple fact. Liberal progressives are the only ones who share your beliefs. Certainly conservatives don't. And the whole conservative tradition doesn't. You complain that I don't let others live as they wish - but I have no problem with them living as they wish. On the other hand you have a problem with attacking conservatism and Orthodoxy and not recognising even the fact of its existence. You say its backwards, and not adapted to the times - nonsense!
Quoting John
Nope. In fact if it pleases you okay - I feel righteous anger when my spouse cheats on me - happy? >:O
Quoting John
Cite where.
Some liberal conservatives may share my beliefs or even all of them. From that it simply doesn't follow that I am a liberal conservative. Syllogize your claim and you will see why it is an invalid inference. I'd do it for you, but I can't be bothered.
Quoting Agustino
Yep, scintillating argument you got going there, boy.
Quoting Agustino
I haven't said that I explicitly said that, but it is implicit in what I have said. I certainly couldn't be bothered going back over what I said in any case to satisfy your desire to focus on what is really a minor point of little significance.
You assert with you "nope" that it is not anger that does the work of motivation in cases of fighting against injustice, for example. Perhaps you can explain then how the emotion of jealousy could be understood to able to do some specific positive work of motivation in some circumstances that anger could not equally well accomplish without the self-focused negativity.
You believe X.
A's believe X.
Therefore you are A.
A's believe Q.
Therefore you believe Q
Q is false.
Therefore A's are wrong.
Therefore X is false.
I can't be bothered either.
Just so this goes on record: no conservatives, of any kind, would say that adultery is ever morally acceptable - regardless of what those who commit or engage in it think about it - and that's a fact. A few liberal conservatives may support the absence of legal punishments for adultery - that much is true, but none of them would accept that there is any situation in which adultery is morally acceptable, or in which sharing partners is moral. None.
Your knowledge of politics seems to be utterly and unashamedly lacking - so let me provide a lesson for you. Liberal conservatives are founded upon both promoting individual freedom (AND RESPONSIBILITY), and promoting conservative values. What are conservative values? First of all, John, conservative values are natural law. Do you know what that is? Do you know that natural law condemns adultery as immoral, ever since the Ancients? Do you know that one of the founders of liberal conservatism - Edmund Burke - condemned all forms of sexual immorality? Do you know that he decried the slide of the modern world into debauchery, especially as was happening in his time in France, during the French Revolution? What you're thinking about is libertarians - which are not conservative. Paleo-libertarians are libertarians founded on conservative values - they would condemn adultery but not legislate against it.
Furthermore - people who are very close to being what I called progressive conservatives - Reinhold Niebuhr - even they condemn adultery. Niebuhr broke his friendship with Paul Tillich because he used to have casual sex with women other than his wife - and that's the attitude any man with a spine would have. Only a leech - who dreams about doing this himself - would refuse to at least morally condemn such activity. There's also other people - like Catholic liberal conservative philosopher Jacques Maritain, who supported the famous left-wing radical Saul Alinsky - even he condemned adultery as outright wrong, unacceptable and immoral. Many many other examples, but again - this just illustrates that you don't know what you're talking about. You have no idea what world you're living in!
Quoting John
Yes - maybe if you quote the whole sentence you will find an argument. Quoting just the beginning is another one of your sophisms.
Quoting John
I think you understand by "jealousy" something very different than I understand. In your terminology you can replace jealousy with righteous anger if that makes you feel any better - and I've told you this before. You're ignoring the obvious point - it doesn't matter how you call that emotional reaction - what matters is that there is a negative emotional reaction which is objectively demanded if your partner cheats on you. End of story. And of course that part, you never tackle, you quibble over a word.
Now - fact of the matter is that you - as well as Osho, Krishnamurti, and so forth - all of you - you qualify as progressives, even if you have no interest in politics (or you claim you don't). Your mindset, and your mentality is progressive - it's not conservative. Same for the one spreading unenlightenment around - even though both of you have given your word that you do not wish to pursue this conversation further. But it seems you can't even keep your own word - I don't want to even think whether you can keep anything else where it should be kept.
More importantly - you have given your word that you will show to everyone how absurd it is to even discuss punishment for adultery - you have done no such thing. You have failed. In fact from the very first moment you posted the thread, you had someone else arguing along with me for punishment! And in fact, he was even more certain than I am that it requires punishment. So the only thing you proved is how ignorant you are - and how deluded you are by your liberal-progressive bias - that you think the whole world supports these absurd assumptions that you make. Namely that something can be morally permissible if the participants agree to it, and if two people agree to do X, then it is morally right for them to agree so. This ethics of consent. Not everyone shares this - but of course, in your ignorance you condemn everyone who doesn't to the dustbin of history - because you want to impose you values - or lack of values maybe. Other progressives have themselves told you that while they don't support punishment for adultery, they can see how people could rationally support or desire such punishment. Yet you don't even see that - you don't even listen. And look - this is a very liberal-progressive community - it's a fact. I'm one of the very few social conservatives here. And even in such an environment - even here - there's so many people who show consideration and understanding, and accept rational disagreement, unlike you - who seeks to impose your ignorance and your own values on everyone.
Quoting unenlightened
You might be more credible if you didn't embarrass yourself with performative contradictions.
I think the proper punishment for adultery is to tie the offender to a chair and dunk it repeatedly in the bay. And maybe after that do a witch test.
Quoting Agustino
Quoting Agustino
Quoting Agustino
Quoting Agustino
Quoting Agustino
Quoting Agustino
Quoting Agustino
Quoting Agustino
Quoting Agustino
Ad infinitum. Honestly, why don't you demand punishment for all the Seven Wickednesses of pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth? No more suffering is caused by subsidiary sin of adultery than by any of the Big Seven. Criminalizing, investigating, prosecuting and punishing people for pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth would certainly be a tonic for a debauched immoral society (like ours, I suppose).
Why pick on adultery? Mortal flesh is prone to many errors. "All we like sheep have gone astray, every one in his own way." What's so special about adultery? Coveting, envying, raging, gluttons cause at least as much havoc in this world than adulterers, though it may be less personal.
Perhaps the heat of your rage over adultery owes its high temperature to pride. Perhaps adultery is so offensive because it is, among other things, a blow to the esteem in which we hold our selves, an attack on the sufficiency of our value to another person. "What more than ME could you possibly want or need, you ungrateful wretch?"
First I didn't open the thread. I merely stated in a very large and long post in a different thread which didn't have to do with adultery except as an example of a sin (an example which by the way I wasn't the first to offer in that thread, I was merely commenting on it) that maybe something like that should be legally punished. Now some folk are very very upset about that it seems. So don't blame me - I didn't want to discuss this at all (at least not in this way, with people who are so closed minded - I find it tedious) - especially with folks like unenlightened and John, I see no reason. I'd be open to discuss with people like yourself, or AndrewK if you were interested to discuss it because at least the discussion can get somewhere that way, even though we hold different viewpoints. With people who aren't open to even admit the existence of other viewpoints - calling them irrational, undeserving of being discussed, and so forth - no point in discussing except as offering a defence of the plausibility of the position.
Second the reason adultery is different from something like gluttony, is because most of the time gluttony impacts just the individual, and has minimal impact on others. Adultery is more alike theft, in that it doesn't only psychologically or physically harm the doer, but the victim as well. It's not about the suffering caused to oneself, it's about the suffering caused to others when deciding about legal punishments. If something causes harm just to yourself, no reason to outlaw it. But if something is significantly harmful to others - then there are grounds for potentially outlawing it - but then there are many further difficulties from there until getting to outlawing it.
Nothing is special about adultery - just another sin, like theft. I never even claimed it's the worst of sins or anything of that sort (although unlike theft it is a social sin, not an economic one - perhaps today most folk are so obsessed about the economy they don't care about society anymore).
Other than that your response is just quoting my post which is merely in retort to some of the other comments. What am I supposed to talk about if this thread is about punishment for adultery? Would you expect to see the words "flying pigs", "pink elephants", or the like repeated instead of "adultery" and "punishment" which is exactly what the thread is about (did you forget how the thread is called?)? Really... give me a break.
I'd rather discuss adultery with you than with anybody else, sweetheart.
Sin is its own punishment, like virtue is its own reward. People who sin significantly (I mean, real solid sinners) destroy their relationships with others, they cast themselves out of the community if they haven't already been cast out. They destroy other people. The cut themselves off from God -- a unilateral action on their part.
In the same way that many people are very robustly virtuous, a lot of people are not robustly sinful. A lot of their sinfulness is just wandering around in the dark not really knowing what the hell they are doing. "Moral incompetence" isn't the same thing as good, solid sin. Lots of people would have a hard time even telling the Inquisitor what sin is, never mind what their sins were. Morally, they don't know shit from shinola.
The real sinners are morally competent: they have detailed knowledge about what sin is, they know what virtue is, and they have decided to sin. There are all sorts of things a true sinner might do--everything from stealing an article that catches their fancy (knowing that there is no logical way of justifying the theft), seducing and consorting with their best friend's wife (and knowing precisely how this is harmful), killing (murder in the first degree), and so on.
The morally incompetent are not going to suffer much from their sinful behavior. Only the morally competent are able to suffer from sin.
Makes sense - it's not like you find many social conservatives around here :P
Agreed.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Agreed.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Agreed.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Slight disagreement here, I think the morally incompetent will still suffer from their own sinful behaviour, only that they may not be able to perceive the link between the suffering and the morality (and will quite often identify the suffering as an unavoidable part), and hence may continue in their sin -> hence "the Truth shall set your free". The real sinners on the other hand will persist in their sin even if they see suffering as the effects of it.
See how much more easily such conversation goes? :D
1:23-1:24
:D
This is incredibly disingenuous; you have added to your post. When I quoted it, it just said "Nope".
Nothing worth responding to in the rest of your rather pathetic rant.
:-} :-d
Well I didn't see it so your characterization that my response to it it was "just another one of my sophisms" is completely out of line. By the way, the lone supporter of your position on this thread you refer to (MU) did not even bother to respond to my last questioning of his position, so there you go, In any case; I'm pretty much done arguing this subject; which held little interest for me from the start.
Indeed, I wasn't aware that you had not seen it, so my apologies.
Quoting John
That was a supporter for punishment, but there were many more which quarreled with your black and white, dogmatic way of putting the issue.
Quoting John
That's why you opened the thread, I see! ;)
It's all good; I don't become offended or entertain bad feelings on account of online exchanges (or face to face ones for that matter), no matter how heated or outrageous they may become.
Quoting Agustino
You may be right, but I can't remember any; but in any case even if it were true that would be an argument against style, not against substance. Anyway, can you cite some examples, just in order to support your claim?
Quoting Agustino
I already explained in the opening post of the thread that I had little inclination to argue much for what I posted and against your position; and I expressed the hope that others would share the burden and join in the good fight to save your soul ;) . I explained my feelings, my lack of real enthusiasm, from the start so that if it had turned out that I contributed even less than I have done, it wouldn't have disappointed anyone's expectations.
Not only against style - but against your presuppositions - namely that such views are ultraconservative, irrational and shouldn't be held in the modern world - coupled with your seeming disrespect of those who hold them.
Quoting John
A lack of enthusiasm saves the day sometimes ;)
But, such views are ultraconservative. just as my views are liberal. From this it does not follow though that you are aligned with any far right conservative ideology or movement, any more than it follows that I am aligned with any progressivist liberal ideology or movement. As I have repeatedly said it has always been you wanting to bring in such characterizations in to the discussion.
If you do advocate legal punishment for adultery then I would say your views are extremely conservative insofar as such views are not espoused by any political party or movement; well certainly not here in Australia, although I can't speak for the USA.
Also, I disrespect the views, not those who hold them. I don't deny anyone the right to hold any view, no matter how outrageous or absurd I may judge those views to be. I might not respect the understanding or intelligence of such a person, especially if they cannot mount a decent argument to support their views, but even then I wouldn't disrespect the person, if by that you mean claim that they have, on account of their stupid views, forfeited the right to be considered human and to be treated as others are.
If we compare it with the treatment of Hester Prynne in the Scarlet Letter, then that's certainly correct. But I'd say the Puritanical society of 17th century Massachussets was an aberration, not at all representative of views throughout the world at that time.
The impression I get from my kids is that they are really judgemental about what they call 'cheating' - a word that was never used when I was their age - but which covers adultery as well as sex with anybody that isn't your girlfriend/boyfriend, if you have one.
While they are much less judgemental about sex between people that are not in a heterosexual marriage, than people were 'in my day', I feel that they are more judgemental about cheating. I wouldn't dare to judge whether that increased judgementality is a good or bad thing, but it interests me that it is there. I wonder if it is peculiar to my little niche of society (upper-middle class, educated, left-leaning, inner-urban South-Eastern Australian). I'd be interested in what others' experiences are, in their local worlds, of young people's views of cheating. I love the French word for it, by the way, which is 'tromper', meaning 'to trick' or 'fool'.
Also, in assessing whether society has become harsher or more lenient in its view on adultery, we should focus on how it is applied to men, not women. Adultery of women was until recently, in most societies, regarded very harshly because the women were essentially property of their husbands and for a woman to make love to someone else was like a slave being disobedient - completely unacceptable. But my understanding is that, at least in Europe, adultery of a man was laughed off, if not actively admired, as long as the person they had sex with was not another man's wife. I do wonder whether, at the same time as societal condemnation of female adultery has abated (thank goodness), condemnation of male adultery may have become somewhat harsher than it was.
The two opposing directions could be for the same reason. If a woman is property then it is OK for a man to have sex with somebody else. One has no obligations to one's property. But when society rejects that view, perhaps it becomes more accepting of straying by the woman and less so of straying by the man.
I watched a French movie recently Detrompez-vous (English title 'Game of Four'), in which two people find out their spouses are having an affair with each other, and work together to try to break it up. Despite coming from the country that many people think of as having adultery as a national sport and ancient tradition, it seemed to me that the movie strongly directed the viewer's sympathies to the two cuckolded partners, rather than the adulterers.
This isn't a matter of adultery, strictly speaking. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, married to multi-millionaire art heiress Anne Sinclair, and at the time, head of the International Monetary Fund, was accused of raping Nafissatou Diallo, a housekeeper, at the Sofitel Hotel in New York City. Legal forces were brought to bear on the accuser, a million dollar bail was paid, and charges were negotiated fairly quickly.
Not very long ago, Strauss Kahn would probably not have been arrested, and his denial would have been believed. His preference for what the Daily Mail called "'rough' libertarian sex" might have been frowned upon slightly, tittered over, or laughed about, but opprobrium would not have fallen on him. His various sexual affairs would probably have been dismissed as peccadillos--not mortal sins.
Times have changed, though. He did have defenders, but there was also a lot of very sharp criticism of Strauss-Kahn's serial adultery in France, the UK, the US, and elsewhere. When I was in college (mid 1960s) the guys thought a woman being raped "should just lay back and enjoy it". Only the most troglodytic Tromper supporters use such phrases these days.
I'm way way out of the young-folks' circuit, so I don't really know much about what they are thinking, except that I have heard some young people (late teens, twenties) expressing either more responsible or more conservative views about sexual behavior (straight and gay alike). I would say it's something of a ground-swell, certainly not an earth-shattering move towards some older, more traditional values.
My experience is just the opposite. I find that it is still largely unacceptable for women to commit adultery or cheat, although it has indeed become more acceptable than before. Whereas for men, it is more acceptable than ever to cheat. They are lauded by their peers, and they are looked up to for it. BC, you comment about Strauss Kahn - I would remind you that 50 years ago if that was the case with someone, they would have been finished. A Brelusconi would have been impossible 50 years ago.
While I don't debate your personal experiences, and even that it may be so in your communities, it's clear that as a trend adultery and cheating are on the rise - clearly they are not diminishing. This is the case at least in the US and Europe where I have checked statistics. Rates have increased from 10% to 50% in many of those countries. So there is indeed a social problem emerging out of this, which does reflect a more laxity with regards to it, which is not favourable for society.
What must be done I'm not sure, but it seems you don't have many solutions either. As for the 60s :P of course BC, anything is more conservative than the 60s, but we're talking general trends.
As for it getting better for women AndrewK, I disagree. It's always been in women's interest first to condemn adultery. The evolutionary reason is that a woman always wanted (and in most cases still does want) protection while she was pregnant, so she didn't want to be abandoned or cheated on, so that all the male's resources would be focused on her and her offspring, and not on other pursuits. It's always been men who have been complaining that adultery laws are too harsh - not women. Today many men are jumping on the feminazi movements precisely for this reason - it makes their life much easier.
I will end with a quote from the one whom you called perhaps the greatest philosopher (along with Hegel):
Now please do some of your "creative misreading" on that... It's gonna be fun to watch you try ;) (by the way, you notice how adultery is written right next to theft and murder to suggest also the potential gravity of the offence). Sometimes it's baffling how liberal progressives like you can take serious sins and make them into light inconsequential feathers. And by the way, I guess now Aristotle will go from greatest philosopher down to fundamentalist ultra-conservative right? >:O That's what happens when people forget their history, and don't respect their ancestors anymore. We get crazy statements, like condemning adultery is "ultra-conservative" - actually it's just damn common sense - it was so 2000 years ago, and it is so today. The only difference is that today we have a liberal progressive dominated culture imposed over Western society principally by universities, the media, and Hollywood via the mechanism of political correctness. No, let's not talk about adultery, that's a sensitive subject, for each person to privately decide upon >:O . Ben Carson is right:
First, I haven't anywhere said that adultery is a good thing. Second. society was altogether much more rigidly institutionalized in Aristotle's day. Third, note that envy ( jealousy) is right in there with all the other unequivocal sins?
The question we have been examining is whether it should be punishable by law. Please stay on point if you want to have a sensible discussion.
Quoting John
No Aristotle as far as I remember didn't condemn jealousy. And envy isn't the same at all. Envy is when I desire what others have. That's not being jealous - jealousy has to do with injustice.
X is envious when they lust for having sex with Y's wife/husband. Y is jealous when X has sex with his/her wife/husband. Notice the difference? In the first case someone for whom it is unlawful to have sex with Y's partner wants that unlawful thing - thus envy. On the other hand, Y is angered by the fact that X has used what belong exclusively to him - thus jealousy. Hence jealousy occurs as a result of an injustice - something that is unlawful, namely that X doesn't respect the marriage of Y.
Also please note "I am a jealous God" being attached to the commandment not to have idols or worship other gods. Why? Because worship lawfully belongs to God alone - not to idols. Hence God is jealous when you worship idols - why? Because it's giving what rightfully belongs to Him unto others. Jealousy has always had to do with injustice. Envy is purely desiring unlawfully and excessively what others have - and is purely negative.
If your wife has sex with someone else; you may rightly be angry, but that is not jealousy. You are never jealous of the wife. IF you are jealous you are jealous of the other. You might be angry with the other too, but that is a different thing to being jealous of him or her. In any case the other has not transgressed any vows, because the other has made no vows declaring that they will not have sex with your wife. You might be angry with the other because he does not respect the laws of society, but you will be jealous of him only on account of comparing yourself with him or her. Your wife might enjoy sex with them, or even just being with them, more than sex with you or being with you. This is the source of jealousy, it is based in the fear that you may lose your wife and that someone else may have here instead.
Check the additions to my previous post.
Quoting John
If I am jealous of the one she had sex with, that is clearly different from envy. If I were envious of him, it means I would want to be like him. And I totally don't want that. So there's a big difference right there. Furthermore, the other is doing evil because he has taken what rightfully doesn't belong to him - regardless of the fact he made no vow - the vow makes husband and wife rightfully belong only to each other. Hence whosoever takes either husband or wife in adultery commits the same wrong. Furthermore, I'm not jealous because I'm afraid for losing my wife to that person - or because she enjoys having sex with him more than with me. I would be jealous because he has taken what rightfully doesn't belong to him. It totally has nothing to do with whether my wife enjoys it or not, whether I am sexually inferior or not, etc.
In fact, I would be just as jealous if my wife had sex with a handicapped, crippled person who didn't make her feel good at all. I would be jealous even if my wife was raped for example. Not that I would condemn her for that obviously it wouldn't be her fault, but I would still feel jealousy, which is rightful anger towards the one who has taken what rightfully belongs to me. So there is no question of insecurity in jealousy here. There just is none. It's not about any security - it's not about fear of losing anything or of being inferior. It's simply about justice.
And neither will I challenge your personal experiences. We live in different communities and the cultures of those communities may be very different, in addition to which the history of our own particular interactions within our community may differ from those of others in our community.
But then you go on to make a claim that purports to transcend your personal experience, about what you say is 'clearly' the case. I am afraid the veracity of that claim is by no means clear to me. Further, I struggle to see how one could obtain statistics about what adultery levels were for instance amongst the 18th-century French aristocracy, miners in the California gold rush, or soldiers in the Napoleonic wars (or even World War I).
If you'll permit a brief digression: I have been striving for a while now to completely expunge the words 'clearly' and 'obviously' from my vocabulary, in mathematics as well as in philosophy and politics. Usually they are untrue, and are used to cover up the fact that I don't have a good argument to support my claim that P is the case. And in the minority of cases where they are true, they add no useful information to the communication. Especially in mathematics, using the word clearly is simply a slap in the face - an accusation of stupidity - against someone that is unable to see why B must follow from A.
In mathematical writing, there is a substitute that can add useful information without having to produce the entire proof, which is to say something like 'by considering the example of a X that has property P, and trying to perform operation N on it, it can be fairly readily deduced that condition C always holds'. If one is feeling especially friendly, one adds 'the proof is left as an exercise for the reader'. The point is that the sentence has given a guide to the reader about how they might set about convincing themself of the claim's verity. There may be an analog of that for philosophical discussion, but I haven't felt the need to find one so far, as I find that by removing my clearlys and obviouslys from philosophical writing, not only is nothing lost, but clarity is improved.
I commend this vocabularic excision to you and to any others that find that unwonted 'clearly's and 'obviously's keep on popping up in their prose.
I compared with 50 years ago, not with 18th century French aristocracy. And the trend was a gradual rise from 50 years ago to today.
Quoting andrewk
Thanks for sharing this, I will ponder and consider it, and may let you know what I think by PM as it wouldn't belong in this thread :)
Well then what are you actually jealous of in a situation like that? I would say you are jealous or envious because you are afraid that he might be a better lover than you. Or you might be envious of the feelings that your wife has for him; that is for the hold you imagine he might have over her. For me, jealousy certainly involves envy, but it may have an additional element of fear that you will be the loser, or will be seen to be the loser. Jealousy can be seen as a kind of pathological extension of envy into fear.
Envy may be very superficial even inconsequential. You know, you might envy your friend's new car, but without much feeling involved at all. You might even jokingly acknowledge it, but it isn't really of any account. But if you are jealous of him having the new car then that becomes more serious. You might be motivated by those feelings of jealousy to try to undermine him in some way.
You say jealousy "has to do with injustice". Then why don't you feel jealous when you see injustices done to others? You are leaving out yourself. Jealousy is a feeling associated with a sense of injustice to oneself, and that sense may or may not be justified. I say that feeling is associated with losing. As a landscape contractor for many years, I have been ripped off by people. You know, at the completion of the project, they owe me $20,000 and pay only $10, 000. This kind of thing has happened only a couple of times, and long ago when I was more naive. An injustice was done to me, I felt unjustly done by, and yet I did not feel jealous, I simply felt righteously (as I thought) angry. How do you explain that, in terms of your usage?
In any case, I don't agree with your interpretation of the terms 'jealousy' and 'envy' and you apparently don't agree with mine; so arguing about it seems pointless since we would then be arguing about different things. Also it is off-topic, since this thread is about legal punishment of adultery.
Depends. If she was raped, only of the man. If she willingly did it, of both, because they have both taken what rightfully belongs to me.
Quoting John
I honestly wouldn't care one bit about this. Again, even if he was a cripple - as I said in my previous post - who didn't even make her feel half as good as me, I would still feel jealous.
Quoting John
I wouldn't care at all, again. What I would feel jealous about is that she has allowed another to take what rightfully belongs to me, and that another has taken what rightfully belongs to me. That's why if she willingly does it, it feels worse than if she is raped for example (in terms of jealousy). We would feel jealousy in both cases, but different intensity, because in one case it's two sources of jealousy, and in the other only one. And if she divorced me, and then had sex with whoever - I wouldn't feel jealous at all. I wouldn't care if they are better lovers than me or not. I wouldn't care if she loves them more than me. It would all be irrelevant because no injustice would be done. I would feel the sadness of rejection maybe, but certainly no jealousy.
So you may ask, why then is it unlawful this adultery business? Well because the spiritual goods of the relationship are ruined - intimacy is ruined. And this has nothing to do with whether the other person is a better lover or not, whether she feels good or not, etc. The sexual act itself suffices, because sex is never purely physical - it always also has a spiritual component - hence why all religions talk and moralise about sex. That's why promiscuity in the animals is irrelevant - they have no spiritual side - for them sex is purely biological, the more the better. Us human beings also have other interests. For example, I've had sex with two of my girlfriends that I had when I was a teenager - I regret that, because of the psychological effects it has on the self. Now my capacity for intimacy with another women is diminished - because the images of my previous encounters will always be etched in my mind, which takes away from the specialness of anything in the future. That's why no sex before marriage is a very very good idea, which I wish I had listened to, instead of listening to the liberal progressive dribble. So that's a scar I have to carry on for my entire life - nothing can wipe it away, it remains there. That's why these matters are not things to be flippant about and say "yeah yeah why does it matter?".
Quoting John
Maybe for you, but the way I have described it, I hope I made it clear I don't perceive it in the same way.
It doesn't seem to me to make any sense to say that you feel jealous of your wife in any case. The way I interpret the term you feel jealous on account of something someone else has or has had that you consider to be rightfully yours. It's easy to see what the other had that you feel is rightfully yours, but what could your wife have had in that situation that you feel was rightfully yours?
Quoting Agustino
I find that difficult to believe.
I think that if you are being honest about your usage of the term then it is simply a case of you using the term in an unusual way. You are entitled to do that, but I don't believe most people would agree with your usage. So, in any case, it seems pointless to continue with this line, particularly as I already said because it is off-topic. I am only continuing to respond at all to your posts because i feel some responsibility, despite my stated caveats, on account of it was I started the thread.
Which is why I have no qualm about saying jealousy is perhaps worse than envy. If envy is wanting yourself to be something you aren't, jealousy is wanting another to be something they aren't. A demand that someone else is meant to be what you want regardless of who they are. If envy is coveting what you are not, jealousy is coveting someone else being what you want.
You are entirely correct to say your jealousy is not about losing your wife or anyone's sexual prowess. It's about the world not belonging to you. Like envy, jealousy is an emotion of not being able to control the world to your desire.
Jealously is a tantrum at others otherwise to your desire and your lack of power to make them what you want. Rather than righteous anger or ethical understanding, it's nothing more than your disbelief that others have not turned out how you desire. An outcome (supposedly) so impossible, there is simply no way the world would occur like that and make sense.
I've edited and added to my previous post. And yes maybe my understanding of what I call jealousy is different from that of others. I don't think that's really very relevant, we could pick another term for it if you want.
This must be false, because it potentially holds only for a romantic context, and clearly jealousy applies to other contexts as well - such as John stealing my money and enjoying a car he buys with them in front of my house :D
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Not quite.
Quoting Agustino
Why not just call it "righteous anger" then, as I have been suggesting?
If so, how come women have penis envy and not penis jealousy?
Envy seems clear enough: a feeling of discontented or resentful longing aroused by someone else's possessions, qualities, or luck: she felt a twinge of envy for the people on board. Jealousy is more complicated. The root of jealous is Middle English: from Old French gelos, from medieval Latin zelosus (see zealous). Zealous and jealous apparently have the same root in Latin.
Jealous implies envy, a dictionary suggests, but also
• a feeling or showing suspicion of someone's unfaithfulness in a relationship: a jealous boyfriend.
• being fiercely protective or vigilant of one's rights or possessions: Howard is still a little jealous of his authority | they kept a jealous eye over their interests.
• (of God) demanding faithfulness and exclusive worship.
Jealousy perhaps should be used when the emotion is much hotter and riled up than mere envy. Merely envious people generally don't attack the owners of Mercedes or Lamborghinis the way jealous husbands murder the adulterous interloper.
So you don't desire that John be someone else than a person who steals your money?
What I'm saying doesn't just hold for a romantic context.
So says the jealously.
You want sexual exclusivity so much that you blame any woman going into the future. Supposedly, your relationship will be soiled, lesser, somehow without intimacy because one or both of you have had sex with someone else. If she feels you have the greatest spiritual connection with here and you come back with: "Ugh, our relationship isn't that great because I've had sex with previous girlfriends. You'd be better off finding some virgin." How exactly is this meant to make your partner feel about your relationship?
This is what I mean about love being an image to you. Rather than love being considered in terms of living people, you imagine it as a statue floating in the sky. It shows two people who are sexually exclusive to each other. An image which amounts to intimacy. Fail to reflect it, and you will lack intimacy. A situation where it is not people who are loved, but a story of what love is supposed to be.
Why do previous encounters stay etched in your mind? Why do the spoil the specialness of the future? Your jealousy. So caught-up in the desire to be exclusive, you can only see those you wish were your one and only. Anyone new cannot be special to you. They will never be important or desirable enough. It's not enough for you to have a connection and care for someone, no matter how strong or beautiful. Your "spiritual intimacy" cannot be given by love of another person, only by the image you love so much. So busy making declarations, marriage vows and masturbating with the statue, you cannot see the world around you, even you own relationships (if you were to have one with this present jealousy).
I agree with all this BC and I think it is mostly in line with what I have been saying about the relationship between envy and jealousy. IT is a complicated relationship, to be sure, tied in as it is with fear, insecurity. anger, possessiveness and so on.
So, penis jealousy would only be when a women does not merely feel vaguely or even subconsciously envious of the other's possession of such a fine instrument, but when she quite consciously feels outraged at the injustice inherent in the difference of the degrees of practical serviceability between his instrument and hers. O:)
I think the passage quoted from Aristotle by Agustino ( sounds impressive that, doesn't it: "Aristotle by Agustino" 8-) ) which mentions the evil nature of envy, would actually be more appropriately applied to jealousy though on account of those "hotter" feelings you mention, and on account of the fact that envy can be a trivial, and hardly evil. feeling indeed.
Actually I think it is when the envy one feels on account of something someone else has, is amplified into a feeling of entitlement, into a feeling that it is not just that the other should have what you do not have, into, in other words, a feeling of jealousy, that the evil really begins.
I don't believe there is any "day to be saved" in this discussion. :P
Who? Aquinas? We have had "Aristotle by Aquinas" and now we have "Aristotle and Aquinas by Agustino" X-)
I've lurked on this forum for quite awhile, but this thread has recently stirred me enough to join the club, so I thought I'd share a few points here in the discussion. Hopefully I can be clear and understandable.
Firstly, the issue of adultery in this thread seems only to be used in the directly physical sense. That is, married person X sleeps with person Z, thus X and Z are cheating on X's spouse Y. I don't think anyone here disputes such social interaction to be unhealthy, unproductive, and even distinctly immoral. I do think, however, that there is at least one non-overtly physical form of adultery. Let me explain.
I was raised in a Christian family, by Christian parents who had taken the commonplace wedding vows, done so by thousands of couples, here in the United States. With those vows came many things, none more important, however, than the agreement between both my parents to be utterly and completely faithful to each other. Were I to tell you all that such a vow between them was broken, I doubt anyone would think anything more than, "well, one or both of them was seeing and/or sleeping with another person, clearly." I would too, understandably, but that's not quite right. My father, in ill-health and frame of mind, turned toward viewing pornography as a means of releasing the many tensions in his life (to no fault of my mother). I didn't know that he had been up to this for as long as he had when I did, finally, realize the weight of the situation, nor even did my mother. I remember being greatly distraught (an understatement) as I slowly put together the pieces of what was going on. And when I did tell my mother one afternoon what my father had been doing, showing her the evidence, as much as that was awkward for me to do, she immediately concurred with my initial thought that this was adulterous, that he had dabbled in infidelity. In not receiving sexual satisfaction, or, to him, proper affection from my mother, he turned to pornography.
Is this any different from physical adultery? In both instances one partner had been replaced, whether by someone or by something. Instead of sticking with what vows they did originally swear, under even their own God's nose, my father threw it all away. Instead of continuing to give his love to my mother, my father gave himself to women on a computer screen, abstract women that are as real as any physical lover might be. This I consider to be adulterous, in such a situation. If, perhaps, there is a marriage where porn is understood to be okay in viewing, then obviously no vow has been broken. But I think that, in the vast majority of marriages, viewing porn is absolutely seen as adulterous, as adulterous as one or both partners seeing another person while still married.
In following from this, the dilemma of punishment for adultery becomes almost comical, and is one reason why I've decided to pipe up here. It's absolutely absurd, in my opinion, to consider adultery as some problem of the state, that my father adulterously (goddamnit I'm making that a word!) viewing porn is of any importance to judges or lawmakers or Obama. Does my father need to serve jail time because he looked at pornstar x, y, or z? Should he be fined, hanged, forced to endure 100 lashes and then walk the plank? I don't think so. He shouldn't be punished by the state for what he did. His punishment is already losing his wife, his children, his God, and his livelihood. Even as I sit here today, knowing all the nuances of my childhood as I do, the last thing I'd ever think of would be that my father should have been punished by the government with some criminal sentencing. I never even thought to think such a thing until this thread came around.
As followup, the state can, however, punish what may come from adultery, but not adultery itself. The state does, if applicable, have to concern itself with childcare and the settlement of assets and all the other wonderful things many divorces have to deal with in light of adultery, but adultery in and of itself should never be up for public punishment.
Anyway, I realize this post is out of the discussion loop a bit, but hopefully my thoughts are welcome here :)
Hi, and welcome to the forum. I am not convinced that porn addiction should be counted as being as significant a betrayal as having sex with someone else.
Should any other kind of addiction that might produce the equivalent effect of emotional and sexual withdrawal also be counted as adultery?
At the core of marriage is a relationship between two people. In a healthy relationship, the two people communicate openly, like each other like best of friends, are supportive, solicitous of the other's well being, and have enjoyable sex. No relationship is perfect. All relationships have flaws (as do all people), and under the stresses of life individual vitality can be leached away and relationships can go flat. Tired people and flat relationships aren't a disaster, of course, they are more like the norm--at times--for long term relationships.
One of the reasons people get involved in extramarital relationships is an effort to get some energy back into their life. Whether it's moral or not, it sometimes works for the individual. People also masturbate alone and turn to pornography to try to extract some pleasure out of life, once work, childrearing, marriage, et al has become a treadmill. The thing about pornography and masturbation is that there are no performance demands--physically or emotionally. It's reliable. It's cheaper and easier than adultery. And much, much safer.
What's the solution?
Individuals and couples have to find some sort of a workable strategy for the long run. It varies from couple to couple.
"Betrayal" is really all you need for one's marital vows to be broken. I'd define adultery as just that, as well. By the definition, to say adultery is applicable when only sexual contact is at hand would be a bit too obtuse, in my opinion. Especially when pornography is innately sexual! I don't think there should be a semantics debate with regard to the word adultery, although I suppose that's in the realm of possibility.
I can't say I agree with any of what you say here. Coming from my own experiences dealing with pornography, it's anything but unemotionally draining, easy, or "safe." For myself, or anyone else I know. Pornography is something that could always be replaced by something infinitely more moral, loving, and healthy, so for me at least I don't think that viewing pornography is as harmless as washing one's hands or perusing a grocery aisle.
Well it's certainly not for the state to dole out punishment! For whatever reason this thread gave off a similar vibe I remember when lawmakers and the like discussed gay marriage and how to, or not to, police bedroom business. It all is a bit silly.
Nope - I can care less how he is. All I am concerned about is that justice is done. And jealousy is a response to an occurence. The way you treat jealousy is very strange.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
This is false. I haven't blamed any woman.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
This is a fact - not the total lack of intimacy, but it will have less potential than otherwise.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Is that what you would say if you were me? >:O
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Firstly you need to make the distinction between an ideal - and the actual situation. Yes the actual situation can be different than the ideal, no one disputes this. But one can still judge the actual situation as inferior to the ideal (which it necessarily is, hence why something acts as ideal). This is not to say that one shouldn't be exceedingly grateful for the actual situation - or refuse it simply because it doesn't reach up to the ideal. Those are very very different. The fact remains that we are who we are - as I have told you before, sin in this life is eternal. Nothing (well apart from God) can be done to remedy it. This does not mean that one shouldn't try to do one's best with whatever is left. Of course they should - hence Jesus's admonition "sin no more". Look, I made a mistake - people make mistakes - either because they don't know any better, because they don't have the required wisdom and social support around, and so forth - all I can do after having made it is learn from it, which I did. But the fact that I learned from it, and in this manner turned the evil into some good doesn't mean that the evil was erased, or that somehow the good surpasses the evil. Such comparisons are pointless - nothing can erase my history - except God, in the next life hopefully.
But for all practical purposes, it will remain with me. Yes of course I will try to achieve as much intimacy as I can with my future partner - of course I will be exceedingly grateful for it, and of course I will enjoy what I am offered - but I don't even expect to receive anything - and so I am at peace with whatever I will be given, but determined to make the best out of it. But this doesn't mean that I will somehow brush over a mistake, and refuse to admit it, refuse to see the wrongness of it, and the eternal harm that it has done - this has absolutely nothing to do with it. In fact, refusing to see its eternal harm is precisely what does in fact ruin future relationships. As Spinoza said, loss is eternal. But just because loss is eternal doesn't mean that if we have lost we should keep on losing... imagine if you lost a leg... what will you do, go ahead and lose the other also? But there's many many people - and I've had many friends - who have made similar mistakes. But instead of cutting their losses short, they threw love away, and submerged themselves in promiscuity. Such an attitude is not rational. What is rational is to do your best with what you have left, cut your losses, and enjoy what is left for you to enjoy. In other words, learn from your mistakes, don't justify them. Don't justify why you have sinned - why you have done wrong. That's not needed. All that is required is simple honesty, acceptance and reason.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
For the very simple reason because it is part of my history, and we cannot undo our histories. They are fixed - utterly necessary once they have occurred. This isn't to say that you will constantly think about it, be obsessed about it, or even try to bring it back into memory. Of course not. But you have to be aware that it can happen - regardless of your attitude. The possibility will always be there once the sin has been committed - nothing can wipe away the possibility. Will that possibility spoil the future? Not more than the loss of a leg spoils the future - you can get a prosthetic, you can become very happy with it, but its function will still objectively be less than it would have been had you had your original leg in a good condition. I fully concur that having a good and hopeful attitude is good - in fact it is rational - but that isn't to say not to be aware of the objective situation. So all I said is that objectively my capacity for intimacy is more limited. Practically this doesn't mean I can't have a great relationship. Only that the relationship would be less than it would have been otherwise. But that's not a problem - I don't expect the impossible, and I am grateful for things. A good thing is a good thing, even if it's not the best. It's you who thinks that I am obsessed with "the best" to the point where I ignore other good things and refuse to see them - but this really isn't so.
On the contrary, the attitude you promote is completely terrible - you say ignore past sin. It doesn't matter anymore. It's irrelevant. And so forth. That promotes an attitude as if sin were redeemable - as if it doesn't matter if you lose your leg - you can get a prosthetic! Look I was having a conversation with a doctor who is a friend. And we were talking about HIV - and I said to him "Look, what's so terrible about it - everyone is so scared - but why? I mean that's probably one of the "best" serious diseases to get. You live 10+ years even without treatment. But someone like you, who has access to the best treatments, why would you even be concerned about it? You can easily live 25+ years if you get it" But he replied saying that every little small thing counts. Even a small infection counts. Anything that is out of order with the body is bad - and not to be joked about. And he is right - it's the same in moral matters. Everything counts. This being flippant isn't helpful at all.
No immoral act is trivial.
Quoting Heister Eggcart
Welcome to the forum, and thanks for sharing this! This illustrates how a sin that people so commonly trivialize - oh yeah, it's just porno, nothing bad - can actually destroy people's lives.
Quoting John
Surely it's not as bad as adultery, but it is bad enough.
Quoting Bitter Crank
When it comes to this there are sins and sins. Adultery is worse than pornography. In-so-far as someone has temporarily used pornography in order to avoid adultery, while that is clearly not good, it is still much better than having resorted to adultery - better to get to Heaven maimed than to be cast into hellfire. If a husband or wife really can't hold it - much much better that they fantasise to porn than they go and cheat. But I know now some folk here will reply: "oh yeah, but it's better to go cheat once and be done with it than to watch a screen" - false. The damage of pornography is bad - very bad. But adultery is infinitely worse.
When I was a teenager in 9th grade I had some folk at school who liked to use prostitutes (that's what Eastern Europeans do in high school...). At the time when many of us (including, shamefully, me) had discovered our sexual nature and fallen into the sin of watching pornography - they were like "why would I watch pornography, when i can so easily get a girl every week? I don't even have to take her out anywhere. Much better to fuck once a week and get over it, than to watch a screen every so often". Wrong. Very very wrong. It's much better that you watch the screen than to be promiscuous - better to lose one eye than have both eyes cast into hellfire. That's why they've never had a proper relationship - probably not even until now (I haven't kept in touch with most of them, as they were never my friends). But of course there's many unenlightened folk who encourage as much sex until marriage as possible - ignoring the obvious dangers.
And now for the dangers of pornography - look pornography is very bad. It's not a trifle - it's not to be joked about. When I met my first girlfriend, pornography was one of the prime issues which took away from the relationship - until we managed to stop it, and this took a long time - a few months of common effort. How did it harm us? Because nothing compares to pornography - in pornography you can fulfil any fantasy, and it's so easy. Not to mention that nothing compares in terms of pure physical (not spiritual - very important) pleasure to pornography. You can sit there, watch, go at your own pace, there is no other you have to take care of, there is no one to satisfy except yourself. You can go back and forth, and spend hours in front of that screen. Stop when you please, start when you please. So easy. In the real world, people are people, with their own characters, and their own limits to what and how they're willing to do. Real people have their dark sides, they can sometimes be uncaring, and so forth. Furthermore, they have their own desires, which are not always the same as yours. So when you watch pornography, you start to compare that with your situation. You start to fantasise about reality - you start to bring demands. You start treating the other person as an object.
But please - if ever you desire very strongly something unlawful and can't stop giving in to the temptation - never think about adultery, promiscuity etc. Just open that screen. Just turn it on. It's going to actually be better from a purely physical point of view than anything like adultery, promiscuity, etc. But of course it is better never to find yourself in a situation where you have to commit to a smalller harm in order to avoid a bigger one - that's why you need to be on guard. You need to orient yourself towards the spiritual pleasures, and gain control over your sexuality. It is eminently possible if you desire it! In fact, it feels much better.
People's experience with pornography varies from person to person. Some guys don't find pornography terribly interesting, some like it a lot, some MUST have it, with various points in between. Same thing with prostitution. Some find it repellent, some find it a public convenience akin to plentiful taxis.
A distinction I want to make with adultery, pornography, lack of interest in sex with one's partner, and so on is that from one perspective these are, as you describe, betrayals. From another perspective these are morally indifferent, but diagnostically significant. How so?
In a relationship that is defined as mutually committed, formally recognized, and deeply valued relationship defined as exclusive and perpetual, Adultery (capital A) is a betrayal, a very serious moral failing. No one has argued here that Adultery is a good thing, or of no moral significance. We are all pretty much agreed about that.
Sometimes adultery (not capitalized) is a sign of a failing or failed relationship. Use of pornography, masturbating alone, or disinterest in sex with one's spouse can be the same thing. Relationships often die a slow or rapid death from causes which have nothing to do with adultery, pornography, or masturbation. In these cases (and they are many) adultery is a result, not a cause. Same for pornography, unexplained absences, heavy drinking, indifference, and so forth.
The failure rate of marriage is quite high. There are a variety of good causes to attribute this to: lack of adequate preparation for marriage, bad economics, ridiculously unrealistic expectations, marrying too soon (youth), previously established habits of drug and alcohol use, romantic notions that never did make sense, a lack of maturity, a lack of experience living in cooperative households, and so on. In other words, a lot of marriages fail because of incompetence.
Amen my brother.
But then you say:
Quoting Bitter Crank
I would argue that the apparent malice associated with the deed would increase the sinner's ostracism, but even a clueless sinner is going to find himself cast out, although perhaps he won't understand why.
Your dogmatic premise is what makes much of what you say useless to anyone who doesn't happen to believe as you do. You condemn adultery, pornography, and prostitution as these horrible evils that will destroy your soul, trash your relationships, and cast you out from honorable society. I can't dispute that they might, but I can dispute that they must. People are complex entities, and while I will certainly advise you to never cheat on your spouse, I can't say that people never recover from it and from there live happily ever after. I also think there are plenty of folks who don't have any (and I mean any) ill effect from pornography or prostitution. They go from cradle to grave no more or less happy or fulfilled than the most vice-free person. I would imagine many of your friends who visited prostitutes have married, had kids, remained faithful and every thing else. You can insist your resistance made you a better person, but you'd be at a loss to show how you measure that.
If I were writing a book on how to be fulfilled and satisfied, I wouldn't suggest that lying, cheating, stealing, screwing around, or watching porno was the path to success, but I wouldn't necessarily include a chapter on avoiding sexual vice. The truth is that most who engage in sexual behavior that does not lead to happiness simply learn from their mistakes and stop.
True - just like some are born with no arms and legs and still manage to live a happy life (Nick Vujicic for example). Others lose a leg and still manage to live happy lives afterwards. I agree with all that. But that doesn't mean one should lose a leg - in fact one should do everything they can not to. It's a harm - regardless of whether it can be overcome - which definitely decreases from their potential in life. A decreased potential doesn't mean that they are cursed to an unfulfilling existence - it just means that their capacities will be lower. But they can still live fulfilled lives and maximise whatever capacities they still have left.
Quoting Hanover
I disagree with you, but of course you are entitled to believe otherwise.
Quoting Hanover
This I more than disagree with. Virtue is the key to happiness. No that's wrong. Virtue is happiness itself. "Happiness is not the reward of virtue - but virtue itself" - Benedict de Spinoza. Virtue is precisely that which fulfils the telos of the human being - which harmonises all his desires and ensures that no contradictory - or harmful pattern - exists. That everything is working towards the individual's well-being. But of course, you give no argument for your statement, so I will not rush to say more.
Quoting Hanover
I only kept in touch with one, who was struggling with a drug addiction last time I spoke with him. He also had some child with a woman he wasn't married to, nor was he in an active relationship with, much less married. So no - I don't think so.
Quoting Hanover
I don't need to show how that is measured for it to be true that I am a better person than I was. Similarly I don't need to tell you how to go about measuring the temperature of the water to know that the water is hot.
Quoting Hanover
Again - the harm from such behaviour is irrecoverable. You cannot bring it back. That's like saying "I wouldn't necessarily include a chapter on being careful to preserve your bodily integrity. People who lose a leg learn from their mistakes and still manage to live good lives" - that's just stupid. You should give advice on how to live a good life - not on how to overcome obstacles once you get into them - that's stupid. You prevent first, and only secondly deal with curing if you really have to. Imagine I told you "yeah go naked outside, you'll get a cold, but you'll learn from it" - that's not advice, but the lack of it.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Or vice. It's really the same thing.
Again, this is dogma. Obviously if you proclaim virtue the highest of all goods, then those who have the most of it will be the best. The rest of what you say is just mindless repetition of what you've already said: those who adhere to the virtues you find virtuous are the bestess. What constitutes virtue is largely defined by you (like don't watch pornography) and once it falls into that class, you've just got to do it. Quoting AgustinoIs that stupid or is it stupid to analogize watching pornography with losing a leg?Quoting AgustinoAnd so I know a person who did in fact visit prostitutes when he was young. He has been married for over 20 years and they have a very successful daughter. So what now?Quoting AgustinoI'm pretty sure we can measure the temperature of water.
And how is what you say different? It's also dogma. Except that you provide no argument for it, and merely expect me to accept it. You strung a sentence together, without any appeal to experience or reason. That's nothing but dogma.
Quoting Hanover
Good for you, I'm not disputing it.
Quoting Hanover
Yes, only that we don't need to measure it in order to know it's hot, which is my point.
Yes, happiness is more like hotness, not something "measured", thus making my analogy correct. You measure temperature, not "hotness". I don't need to tell you how to measure happiness in order to know I am better now than I was back then. Just like even if I don't know how to measure temperature, I can still say if the water is hot.
Quoting Hanover
I don't want to prove it to you. You have the wrong impression. I'm challenging you. Are you up to the challenge? It seems you only want me to prove it to you - while you don't do anything. I don't care if you believe me or not. But it's certainly in your interest to investigate and find out what true happiness and true love is. If you want to, then bite the bait, and play the game under equal rules. We're in the same boat - not one to prove and the other to examine. Do you really have no passion for it?
Quoting Hanover
Yes I have presented an argument very well said. Where is yours? You keep your tail out of the game, and you point fingers at others, that's where it is ;)
No immoral act or any act for that matter is without consequences; the consequences may certainly be more or less trivial and more or less trivial ranging across a very wide spectrum.
So, some acts and feelings, such as feeling a twinge of envy when you see your friends new Lamborghini, are of no significant or practical consequence; we simply don't have the time or energy to attend to every minor defect of our personalities.
Quoting Agustino
Sure, it is bad enough; and it will be made worse for the addict by receiving condemnation and rejection rather than concerned understanding and the extended hand of help. If the addict says 'fuck you, I love my porn" then they cannot be helped and must be left to their own devices.
Exactly the same applies with any other addiction.
I wish when I was addicted to it I had received condemnation and rejection earlier :P
I didn't present this clearly. The consequence of sin (likely) is a separation, an alienation, from the community. Either one is shunned, or expelled, or made a pariah, or is put in prison -- something. Separation from one's community is painful for social animals like ourselves. The morally competent will feel guilt in addition to the pain of alienation.
The morally incompetent will be shunned, expelled, be made a pariah or be imprisoned. They might not feel a lot of guilt. The morally incompetent readily blame others for their self-caused problems. "'You' 'They' 'It' made me behave badly. It isn't my fault." That might be true, but it usually isn't. People generally act badly because they have decided to act badly. (Acting badly here means actions like murder in the first, theft/robbery/burglary, adultery, etc.)
Quoting Agustino
heat, hot, happiness, horse shit.
You usually can't tell whether whether the water is hot without measuring it. You don't need to use a thermometer to measure the temperature of the water, but you have to use something -- your finger, your toe, your tongue -- something. Putting your toe in the water to determine how hot, or cold, the water is IS measurement.
A virtuous person might not be at all happy. He might be grieving, he might be very depressed, he might be very frustrated, all sorts of things. He might feel very guilty and inadequate, despite his virtue. (People in the upper midwest often feel guilty without good cause.) Virtue is worth pursuing but supposing that it will definitely make you happy is a mistake.
It's also a mistake to assume that not-virtuous behavior will inevitably lead to misery. It will lead to misery for those who value virtue above all else. The less store one puts in virtue, the less bad behavior will produce misery.
Happiness (and its opposite) are not a function of virtue (and its opposite). Some people are happy as a given. They didn't earn it or deserve it, they just are happy. Similarly some people are miserable as a given. They also didn't earn or deserve to feel wretched, but they do.
Virtue is its own reward, they say. It doesn't win us an additional prize.
That is impossible, because being depressed, being grieving, being frustrated - all these are lacking in virtue. It is a virtue to be joyous, happy and content. It's not like virtues are just being pious, courageous, loyal, etc. That's why in Christianity for example, being anxious is a sin. You have a duty to rejoice in creation.
It sounds like you did receive them, though, and that you found them helpful. A strong person may find condemnation and rejection to be just the stimulus they need to arouse them from their "dogmatic slumbers", but I would not recommend them as a curative generally, because a weak person will quite likely only be driven by condemnation and rejection further into their weakness.
Ah, if only I could feel fulfilled by such meager achievements!
Well..
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:6-7)
That's an outright lie. The fact he took your money and has used it make a purchase, which he is now rubbing in your face, is exactly what matters. It is all about how he is in the situation. He wronged you and there is nothing you can do about it. In you mind, an outrageous loss which must be undone (despite that being impossible).
For contrast, you don't sit back and say: "Well, my money has been taken and I won't get it back. At least John is enjoying his new car." You covet a different John. John shouldn't just ought to have been different, he [i]must be[i], else the world cannot make sense.
You do keep on losing though, for you treat the eternal loss of sin as if it means your future is tainted. I'm not talking about ignoring sin here. To say past sins don't spoil one's future is not to ignore them. It's to say mistakes of the past doesn't mean someone continues to lose. The loss of a past partner does not amount to loss with a future partner. In your guilt and jealousy, you confuse the loss of the past for the present.
I'm not saying you haven't lost. My point is that loss is tied to that situation. You are the one who failed in the past, not any future partner and your relationship with them. Instead of taking the eternal harm of sin seriously, that is, understanding it as your mistake which can't be redeemed, you take it out on others. Your loss becomes something you bludgeon others with--"our relationship isn't as good as it could be, etc., etc."-- as a means of quelling your distaste for your inferior self.
That's precisely the distinction we cannot make. To do so is to keep on losing. It's to think we ought to have a different world than we do. The expression that, if we had the option, we would pick the world we are not in, a world without what we care for in the present. No doubt the present may be inferior in some way (missing legs, loss relationships), but it must be the world we ought to have. We must be content in our present inferiority-- we must love, no less than we did before loss, those we share the world with. Otherwise, we love the image of a perfect self that never exists more than anything in the world. We choose to heap loss upon the world to hide away from its failings.
I'm pointing that is what you are saying. This is what I mean about blaming the women. You take your eternal loss and say it means she has failed-- that she has a lesser connection merely because you were with other people in the past.
Yours was a zinger, his was just sour grapes.
My quote on the other hand is aimed precisely at tackling anxiety though. Paul says it as a command - do not be anxious.
Well there is something I can do - turn him in to the police. But what would motivate me doing something about it? Jealousy. So clearly "not being able to control the situation" isn't a part of jealousy. It may very well be that the jealous person has ample ways to control the situation. But he would still feel jealous. In fact, even if I was a king or emperor, and John did that, I would still feel jealous. But I probably would be able to control the situation very well - send the police to get him, throw him in jail, and get back what was mine.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Maybe I would say that if I knew there was no chance to get it back. I would initially feel jealous in that case, but I would soon understand that there's nothing I can do about it, and the feeling would wane.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Okay but I'm not debating that. I agree that past mistakes don't mean someone continues to lose. But they do mean that someone has lost, and that loss they carry with them - hence the sin is eternal. If I lost a leg, I carry that loss with me.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Here you are wrong. It's a loss in one's capacity for intimacy (not complete loss, I didn't say that) but rather a decrease in it. It's like losing some functionality in your leg. You've lost it. If now you want to use that specific functionality to the same degree, you can't.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
The loss of the past is present - that's why it is eternal.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Sure I never claimed otherwise.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
This is just false now.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
No it's not to think we ought to have a different world. Not at all. In fact, if we were to think that, we could never be grateful. But we are grateful for the current goodness that is in our lives precisely because we realise we don't deserve any other world. This doesn't mean though that we don't recognise and differentiate what is good, what is better, and what is evil and worse.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Did I say not to be content with our present inferiority? That would be just arrogance towards God - a great sin.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
This is not true since it's never her fault. It's my fault - clearly - so how can she be blamed? Her capacity for intimacy, assuming she has not sinned is unaffected. Furthermore, in the spiritual connection between partners more than just the capacity plays a role. Analogically, some people may have a weak leg, but they train it so much to make up for that weakness. Likewise, openness to intimacy, and knowledge about how to relate are important factors (next to the capacity for intimacy) for both partners. And lastly - the connection can be perceived differently - even in quality - from one partner to the other. If one has sinned more, they (the one who has sinned, not the other one) will likely perceive it as lesser.
Sure it does.
Therefore I say unto you, Be not anxious for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than the food, and the body than the raiment? 26 Behold the birds of the heaven, that they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not ye of much more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit unto [f]the measure of his life? 28 And why are ye anxious concerning raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: 29 yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God doth so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? 31 Be not therefore anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? 32 For after all these things do the Gentiles seek; for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. 33 But seek ye first his kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. 34 Be not therefore anxious for the morrow: for the morrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."
You are contradicting yourself. If people want to spend eternity in Paradise, and there are certain characteristics of those who are admitted to Paradise, then it would make sense to develop those characteristics. Unless, of course, you are taking Calvin's approach that those who are saved are saved, and those who are damned are damned and can not help themselves.
It seems that you're under the illusion that one can always choose whether or not to be anxious or depressed.
As much as I try, and as much as I do at times cultivate positive results from my work, depression and anxiety is something I'm always going to live with. I can't rewrite my life so I didn't have to experience what I have. There's no amount of medication or counseling that's going to keep me from being a somber individual. Does Paul, as you say, command us to not be anxious? Absolutely. But he doesn't condemn the heart that fights their sin. Paul implores us to be aware of our shortcomings and not to dwell in apathy. I strive to combat that which makes me a wretch, but it isn't my fault when I, still being human, still come up short.
Neither Jesus nor Paul were in the business of damning those who understand love to be the greatest virtue, those imperfect men and women who strive to be good, yet always stumble because of their, our, imperfect natures. You, Agustino, are no more good and virtuous a man or woman than I if we both strive toward love in all things. And if indeed you are of upstanding character, were you to be unloving, anxious, or adulterous, I would not damn you, for even Jesus invited a thief to be a disciple unto him.
~
Frankly, rereading what I first quoted from you above makes me think of you as distinctly unchristian. Ironically, I'd be a lot more abashed by what you wrote were I to be in a more cynical and frustrated frame of mind. To be anecdotal for a moment, say that my best friend and I were abducted, and I had to watch on, powerless as she was tortured and raped. Would I be unvirtuous were I to feel the least bit frustrated, hateful, or anxious? To be perfectly honest, I think it would in fact show a distinct lack of virtue if I did not feel in such a way.
I was referring to that specific quote.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Yes but poverty of spirit isn't a characteristic of those who are admitted into Paradise, but rather that these folk are more likely to develop the characteristics required. And the passages that follow make it clear that anxiety is to be avoided, thus clarifying this point.
I am not, I myself have had anxiety and depression in the past - although it might look that way - it's the necessary discourse I have to adopt in a liberal-progressive environment, because the liberal-progressive attitudes are so permissive to sin that my harshness is merely a remedy and counterbalance to that. If I was talking to Christian folk I probably wouldn't be having such a discourse. But in this environment - where, let me remind you, we have people who suggest that adultery and/or pornography aren't even sins, where we have folk who suggest that marriage should be banned - in this environment, the moral harshness is, I think, a good antidote. If you don't know, then I think it's important to note that us two are very probably the only two Christians here. So it's good to finally have another brother around ;)
Quoting Heister Eggcart
You need to make the required distinctions. For example, in that case above you wouldn't feel anxious - you'd feel afraid - and there's a big difference between the two. You would indeed feel frustrated and powerless, and you will feel hatred. Those are perfectly justified (and indeed, you are right, it would be a vice if you didn't feel them) - anxiety is not. Anxiety is used precisely to denote that kind of fear which is simply paralyzing - totally not useful. For you, in that scenario, it would be very useful to be afraid. That's the natural reaction of the human body, and it would make you do whatever you can do in order to escape and protect your loved one.
But anxiety is different. Anxiety is when you sit in your room doing nothing, just being afraid that you may be fired from your job for having misspoken to your boss. In the meantime a family member is having difficulties, but you're not there for them. Why? Because you're so self absorbed into your anxious thoughts. Anxiety is also when you are so concerned that you will lose your business that you neglect your wife and children. And this anxiety is a sin.
And notice that the fact that I think there are negative emotions which are rightful and even obligations is evident from my writing a few pages ago. I argued that jealousy can be a justified feeling, and that sometimes if one doesn't feel jealous then they are lacking in virtue. So it is clear that negative emotions can be a sign of virtue as well.
Quoting Heister Eggcart
Yes so will I probably - but this doesn't say much. It's not about not having anxious thoughts - it's about the reaction we have when we do. I will always have anxious thoughts for example - it's the way I've always been. But I learned to control them - having the thoughts is invisible from the outside for me - because I just have no reaction to having them. I ignore them. So yes, I probably always had anxious thoughts - but I most certainly didn't always have anxiety. And this distinction is very important. So I applaud your efforts, it sounds to me that you are taking exactly the right path, nothing wrong with that. So good job! :)
Quoting Heister Eggcart
Absolutely, and neither do I condemn effort in the scope of moral improvement.
Quoting Heister Eggcart
We are not saved by works - that is true. We are saved by faith. Buuuuuuuut - and this is the point that is often missed - this faith does necessarily result in works.
There is no faith without deeds. The deeds don't produce faith - which is St. Paul's point - but the faith does produce the deeds and does bring us salvation. And if it doesn't, then it is a dead faith - a self-deception, whereby we deceive ourselves that we are saved, when in fact we are not. Works are the fruits that grow in the tree of faith. My point is that you cannot have, for example, a woman walking around calling herself a Christian who as soon as she's out the church door starts swearing like a sailor, who goes around cheating on her husband, etc. All she does that would identify her as a Christian is that she claims to be one, and she repeats the words "Jesus Christ is my Lord and Saviour" - and then she begs for forgiveness after every time she does something wrong - but she goes on doing the same wrong things year after year, and nothing is changing. Such a person is just deceiving themselves, as Kierkegaard was very quick to note. And self-deception - the deception that one is saved when one isn't - is worse than not being saved. That's why "blessed are the poor in spirit" - that's why the harlots and corrupt tax collectors shall enter the Kingdom before the Pharisees. Not because it is righteous what they're doing - not because being a prostitute is good and should be respected - but because they are not self-deceived. And self-deception most definitely prevents you from entering the kingdom, in a way that sin by itself doesn't.
Kierkegaard noted that we have the very important mission to smuggle Christianity back into Christendom - because many Christians live in apathy, not in real faith.
So cheating on your wife, day after day, but begging for forgiveness, and then doing it again - then crying that your sinful nature doesn't let you do any better, then repeating the whole cycle over again - that isn't faith. Faith isn't a license to sin. You don't claim "I believe in Jesus Christ" so then you can go ahead and go to the harlots. Faith needs to be seen outwardly - its radiance must be perceptible, and it is so through works.
As for the fact that joy is a duty - it is. Life is a gift from God. If you give me a gift, and I take it and simply put it away, because I'm worried and lost in anxious thoughts, how will you feel? And if you will feel bad, how much worse will God feel when people reject, through their self-imposed misery, the beautiful gift of life they have received? But how joyous will God be when his creatures rejoice in his creation!
So morality is important. Not failing - especially in important matters of morality - is important. And if we have faith, we will not fail.
Are you suggesting that I should be satisfied with mediocrity?
Now I have you, right where I want you! Meet me in the desert, would you? >:)
As I said before, many a time this anxiety comes and goes whether you like it or not. And how isn't it useful? If one is aware that they are anxious much of the time, and work hard against being so, how isn't that helpful?
I also suppose that we'd need to define anxiety more thoroughly. I'm not necessarily using anxiety solely in the medical sense (which wouldn't apply to the story I made up, for example) but an anxiety more akin to general angst. It's that pervasive feeling of uncertainty and worry that comes with some who have lived the worst sides of life. I also think that such an attitude, whether chosen or not, can be healthy if you use it to your advantage.
No one has knowledge of salvation to be a certainty. I'd argue that you are no more in salvation's back pocket than the faux Christian you mention before that. The difference between you both, however, comes as you argue from faith+works. But that doesn't ensure salvation. You can believe that it does, but you don't really know, 'tis why you must have faith!
The important foundation here should be intent to do good. If one intends to be compassionate, and is able to be loving as a result, then great. But as respectable is the person who still intends to be compassionate but falls short. You can't always do the right thing, especially when the right thing isn't always as black and white clear, like your avatar is.
Love is the gift to the world, not life itself. Without love in life, I'd rather go back to being dead.
No concept of God deserves a bended knee for what mess the world is as a result of whatever you attribute to creating it.
No, I'm not speaking about superiority in relation to others, but about being the best you can be, and of not being satisfied with less.
Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest. Ecclesiastes 9:10
Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.
Collossians 3:23
Good - let's see what you can do ;)
Quoting Heister Eggcart
Well being an anxious and paranoid bastard can certainly be helpful - certainly it has helped me in work related matters. But it needs to be controlled. Out of control anxiety - remaining stuck in anxiety - that is bad.
Quoting Heister Eggcart
Well, this is anxiety in a medical sense. PTSD manifests through anxiety for example as one of the symptoms. This is very similar to the general angst you cite.
Quoting Heister Eggcart
I know by faith - it's still knowledge, which does imply a degree of certainty. As St. Thomas Aquinas, or even closer to us - Pope John Paul II - have explained, faith and reason are both sources of knowledge.
Quoting Heister Eggcart
Ever heard that the road to hell is paved with good intentions? ;)
Quoting Heister Eggcart
See - I picked the right avatar, it conveys the correct message. Why don't you listen to it? :P
Quoting Heister Eggcart
Well certainly there is no love if there is no life, so the two of them are mutually necessary.
That's still a somewhat quaint desire for superiority isn't it? Only that now you're doing it in comparison to yourself. You haven't stopped comparing, you've upgraded. Now you don't commit adultery - you watch porn :P Is this Rudolf Steiner's "ethical individualism" - comparing yourself with... yourself? :-O
Quoting John
For a moment I thought you had quoted the little known but extremely precious book of Ecclesiasticus - which only appears in a few versions of the Bible, but describes virtue quite well, much like the better known Proverbs. I was about to congratulate you for having stumbled on it - today, however, it seems I haven't been granted that honour :P
Quoting John
Sure I agree - put your whole heart into it - but don't compare yourself with yourself >:O
Someone else could have as strong a faith as well, and cite that as being knowledge enough for being certain. Yet, here we are in a world which realizes that's a load of baloney. If all faith was certain, then you couldn't just be a Christian. I think one has faith precisely because they do not know, yet have the conviction to entertain being wrong. Some people don't find that prudent, however.
Such a road is not what we oft travel by, as Robert Frost might suggest.
Perhaps, perhaps not.
Are you sure? Do not many criminals murder in order to gain the money they need to feed their child? Is this not a crime motivated by love, and thus having a good intention at its foundation? Would you say such is moral, and they should be forgiven by the victim and their family?
Quoting Heister Eggcart
I don't :-O Is this bad? I mean I have to ask, because there have been some unenlightened folk in this thread who have told me that my desire to get married is a selfish patriarchal desire to ensure that the children of my wife are my own, and that my wealth gets passed on to them - and I thought I just wanted to give all of my love to one woman - who could have thought that my introspective effort was so far off from the truth? :D
Actions aren't always 100% moral or immoral. The father you mention did one thing right, but a lot else very, very wrong. He intended to do the right thing, by providing for his child, but he also intended to kill someone and steal their money. The state, for example, will look at the former as grounds for making his sentence, based on the latter, shorter. Why? Because he committed murder, and not manslaughter, but did so under the pretense that he had to do what he did and for good reason, which was as we both agree, not quite the case.
Well, perhaps you should reevaluate your faith as being a little less spectacularly special and all commanding as you think it is?
How else does anyone achieve excellence, whether in the arts or elsewhere other than by recognizing and correcting their weaknesses?
How do you presume to know that I watch porn? The impression I have of you, Agustino, Is of someone so over-eager to dispense their lightly-won, immature wisdom that your understanding trips over itself and stumbles just as it is about to enter the path. On account of this you willfully misunderstand what others say to you, you tendentiously interpret them,in order to get an opportunity to pontificate.
What do you know about Rudolf Steiner?
Quoting AgustinoQuoting Agustino
Ah, right, so according to the half-baked sage and biblical scholar Ecclesiastes contains no wisdom?
Quoting Agustino
It's not about "comparing yourself with yourself", but comparing your past with your present performance, and seeing where you might have improved and where you might have slipped back.
It's interesting to note that conservatives want to tell us how the world should be; it should be just as it was in the past; the past should not merely be assimilated and benefited form; it should be conserved. Those who favour change do so on account of the fact that they recognize that change is desirable even necessary, and in any case, inevitable. It is always uncertain as to whether the change will be for the better or for the worse in the 'long run'; but there will be change; thus there is always risk, risk of failure, and conservatives just can't handle that. Thus we can see in play between conservatives and progressives the manifestations of the different psychological effects that both motivate and grow out of looking predominately to the future or looking predominately to the past, that is of looking to foster ever-new possibility, or looking to preserve fixed actuality. Of course there must always be some balance between the two, but the difference between conservative and progressive is a difference in emphasis, and degree of emphasis.
It seems to me when I look at conservatives and progressives and their different political aims and strategies, that it is predominately fear and insecurity that motivates the conservative soul; where it is predominately hope and acceptance of what will be that motivates the progressive soul.
Quoting John
It's a metaphor, I didn't think you'd take it so literarily (not to mention so seriously!), otherwise I would quite possibly not have used it. When you compare yourself to another at least you acknowledge the other. When you commit adultery, you also at least acknowledge another. But when you compare yourself to yourself, you're only acknowledging yourself - just like when you watch porn.
Quoting John
Oh but why - Ecclesiastes is a wonderful book - in actual fact one of my favorites.
Quoting John
And surely comparing your current self with your past self isn't comparing yourself with yourself, right? :P
Quoting John
And some progressives, as evidenced by this thread, want to tell us that marriage should be banned - but of course, that's not a statement about how the world should be. Others want to tell us that people should have as much sex as possible until marriage - but that too isn't a statement about how the world should be. I understand.
Quoting John
Well do you think what was good in the past should be thrown away then? Should we just take it and put it in the bin?
Quoting John
Need I say more? :D
Quoting John
And because it is always uncertain, we should just take a gamble on it, instead of calculate right? Just buy Apple stock, no need to worry about it, just take a gamble, change is inevitable anyway. Why bother making any rational decision based on calculations and past experience? No need! You just have to have faith! Hope and acceptance! They will do you good when you lose all your dough.
Quoting John
Why would I foster new possibility if I don't have any reason to believe it will be good?
Quoting John
Yes exactly, you are correct! :D
Quoting John
When I look at them, I see one which is young and full of energy, but foolish - and another which is old, slower, but wise. I see one which understands the fragility of life, society and happiness - and I see another which is looking to gamble with life, thinking it is going to be safe - put it all on the line for peanuts. Hope and acceptance - the virtues of the foolish, who squander away their fortunes, and must somehow justify their loss as necessary for it to be bearable, no? For how else can loss be bearable, except if it was made in order to learn from it right? For loss to be without reason - how outrageous!
I don't know if it's patriarchal, but if your priority is to have children, then you would indeed be selfish and "in it" for something you may not even realize.
Perhaps you should stop speaking in riddles so people understand more clearly what you say? :o
Don't ever be veiled in your words, and it should never be your fault for being misunderstood then :)
That’s doesn’t resolve anything. Turning John into the police and getting your money back doesn’t take away his betrayal or your inability to control his action, so that the world turns out the way you consider yourself entitled to.
Jealous people often have ways to enact power in a situation; they can report, kill, jail, etc.,etc. They relish doing so. What could be better than killing an adulterous wife? Or locking up that thieving John and throwing away the key? The world will make sense again once “payment” is made. Death and Hell: the twin illusion of sin resolved.
But it doesn’t work. No matter how much Death and Hell are brought to bear, it doesn’t bring back the world which is lost. Sin remains eternal. Nothing done to John can fix the world. It’s lost. You cannot have the world you want. Nothing will take away the wrong John has enacted. Your jealousy is a motivation of fantasy which does not take sin seriously. Not justified anger, concerned with identifying immorality and punishing it, but a desperation to remove the sin because you cannot stand a world which is less than perfect.
[quote="Agustino]Maybe I would say that if I knew there was no chance to get it back. I would initially feel jealous in that case, but I would soon understand that there's nothing I can do about it, and the feeling would wane.[/quote]
I mention it for an important reason. Since sin is eternal, we cannot do anything about it. The situation you describe here applies to every instance of sin, regardless of what response is justified for the protection of the community or to improve the lives of victims.
In jealousy our motivation and expectation is askew. We mistakenly believe it’s about justice when it’s really the fantasy of a world where we didn’t lose.
This is what I mean about blaming her. So caught-up on the lost functionality of the past (past relationships), you insist it means new functionality (present relationship) is also lost. You are literally saying that because you don’t have a past relationship that you want (lost function), you cannot function in the present relationship.
Rather than concentrating on the function you do have (the new relationship) and it’s intimacy, your desire is still for the person of a past relationship. You really want your old function (past partner) because the new function (present partner) simply isn’t up to scratch.
No doubt this would harm intimacy, but that’s all on you. You are the one who wants your past girlfriend. The intimacy of your relationship is not harmed because you’ve had past partners. It’s harmed because what you really desire is your former girlfriend. You are not fully open to being intimate with the new person. You love your past girlfriend or the image of a relationship with her more than the woman in front of you.
You are only thinking of your desire for an exclusive relationship. This relationship is a two-way street. What you say about it's value reflects on her. She's not an island cut off from you have how significant you are to the relationship. What you think about the relationship, how much you value it and her, matters. At the moment you are saying she is nothing but an inferior second choice.
Worse. You enact it and insist upon it, while leaving it unstated. Sure, you say we must be content with inferiority, but you don't live that way. It's nothing but an image to you.
When it actually gets down to it, you cannot be content with loss. You constantly put out fantasies which are supposed to resolve it-- God, afterlives, jealousy driven acts of power, etc.,etc. In the face of a loss function (past relationship), you continue to hold a torch for it, unable to accept it and fully move on to a new function (a new relationship). At every turn you are trying to reject inferiority.
It's funny how much you like to flatter yourself, in fact I didn't feel touchy at all; but I guess it's just another one of your sad attempts to portray others in a light that you hope will make them look worse, which you apparently think will make you look better. :-} I have known many people like you, most of them politicians; and I don't associate with them
To be quite honest I'm really not interested in this any of kind of shit, Agustino. If it was really fun, well then yeah, but I'm not interested in your pathetic attempts at humour, if that is indeed all that is going on with you; which I doubt extremely. Really, I just come here to discuss philosophy; and it seems obvious to me that you are not the least interested in that. :-d
When I want a good laugh I'll watch a good comedy. When you think you're ready to practice some sustained analysis and critique; which might make for some actually interesting discussion, let me know, and I'll think about participating.
Until then...
(N)
Quoting John
Are you the guy who generally shouts and yells "I'm not angry at all!!!"? :-*
Quoting John
Good, then I'm waiting for your better attempts, so that I can laugh properly too - it's not good when you always laugh at your own jokes, you know. Definitely not a good sign :P
Quoting John
Oh but I was certainly in the business of discussing philosophy. For example, you said conservatism wants things to be like the past - it wants to conserve, and thus avoids change. So I merely pointed out that the Founder of conservatism stated that change is a means of conservation. So maybe if you really wanted to discuss philosophy, and not strawmans, and personal prejudices, we could actually have a meaningful (and pleasant) conversation :)
Quoting John
Well yes, but you see, I tried, but there's not much discussion that can be had regarding strawmans is there? Just saying you know.
Funny how some folk cut the branch on which they sit, and dig their own graves even deeper. In politics one learns quite fast that when someone mocks you, you should take it with a laugh - afterall, behind the scenes we all shake our hands and are friends no? :-O Or was I supposed not to openly quote from the Politician Code of Honour to the world? >:O
The real thing is John - that I am agreeing with a lot of what you're saying, but you can't see it because you frame everything in such a conflictual manner... If you were more open-minded you could see it I'm sure. To speak in Hegelian terms which you understand I'd venture to guess that the world initially was under a blind obedience to social morality. Then we've shifted into our current stage - of social disobedience - we break the morals, we commit adultery, we have sex with hundreds of partners, we want to dissolve marriage, etc. This stage is worse than the first, it is its antithesis, and it is the equivalent of man becoming lower, not higher. This too shall finish, and we will return once again to the initial state, only that we will return conscious of what we have lost - it will no longer be blind obedience, but rather self-aware obedience. So I am in full confidence that social conservatism will return.
Having tackled this, I should also add that spiritual freedom has nothing to do with social freedom (and by here I am referring just to social morality). You may not be socially free - and you're never going to be - this wouldn't even be good for human beings - but you will be spiritually free. It is only the mediocre which understand Steiner's third stage (beyond impulse and ethical morality) as license and possibility for sin. Much like Kierkegaard illustrated through the same scheme which Steiner later uses - that of an aesthetic stage, followed by an ethical stage, followed by a religious stage - it is a progression. The aesthetic stage, in its lower form, is the life of beasts. In its higher form, its the life of artists. The ethical stage in its lower form is the life of legalists. The ethical stage in its higher form is the life of men of principles.
The religious stage is not a negation of the higher ethical stage - it is the acceptance of the ethical as absolutely final and absolute for the social world - but it adds the dimension of the highest freedom - and that is spiritual freedom. This is not social freedom from the bonds of family, from your commitments to your wife and children, and so forth. Only the caricatures, the jokes as Osho said, the unenlightened see it that way. Rather this is a new realm of being, which has nothing to do with society. Sexual liberation and the like are irrelevant - they are in fact harmful to the social realm, and totally unhelpful in the spiritual. That's why all these modern movements have lost the grounding of man in the divine, as Voegelin put it. We are now grounding man in man. Man has lost the ordering of the higher. And Rudolf Steiner shared this same idea - unless you realise something higher than yourself you cannot develop into something higher. He didn't see Voegelin's point - that even more, unless you realise something higher, you WILL fall into something lower. What has happened with the modern Western world is precisely that we have fallen into something lower - hence why all the slavery to money, all the greed, all the sexual promiscuity, all the cold indifference to others, all the dissolution of family and social bonds, all the disrespect of morality, law and order.
The common folk have taken the ideas of spiritual freedom espoused by thinkers like Steiner and Voegelin and made a mockery in their name, with their brutish understanding. They have used them as justification for the highest atrocities - having hundreds of sexual partners, being lost in drugs, ignoring the pain and suffering of others, engaging in debauchery, and so forth. Atrocities that are both cruel and humorous in their stupidity. This is not much different than the mockery of God that the Church engaged in with the Inquisition. The sexual revolution is in fact, in structure, the same as the Inquisition. Except that now people are no longer estranged for not believing in Church dogma, they are estranged for not being promiscuous, for upholding moral and social values, etc. It's the same thing - the very same oppression, under a new form.
But in development, stages cannot be skipped. The world has never reached the higher ethical stage. At its best, the world reached legalism. Very few were the thinkers who peered long into the future to see anything different. Plato was one of them - but the spiritual truths that he has seen are something that the mass of mankind will in all probability never know - that's how far it is. So certainly if you want to speak for the masses of men, and not for an exceedingly small elite (an elite much smaller than those who show interest in the spiritual, since most of those themselves misunderstand it), then the most one can hope for is the ethical stage. That's why I never discuss, nor am concerned with the spiritual - nobody will understand. I can give inklings of it - as I have by saying that no sexual act is without a spiritual component - but these inklings as proved by this thread are largely ignored, passed over, misunderstood, or found to be laughable. You tell the construction worker next door that he has a spiritual relationship with his wife - he'll spit in your face. You tell the modern liberal-progressive philosopher that having sex has a profound impact on one's soul - it ties them spiritually with someone else - a connection that isn't broken without spiritual damage - they'll shrug their shoulders, and move on - they won't even know what to say.
And these my friend are the truths of the world. The world isn't ready - and it is foolish to construct that which it's not ready for. Much better to help construct what it is ready for - the ethical - sufficient to stop at Aristotle - as Plato is too much.
But it's not his betrayal that upsets me - it's that an injustice has been done. The injustice demands justice - punishment. I'm not upset that I can't control his actions - I don't even want to do that. I just want justice to be done when he acts in manners which cause harm to those around.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Yeah sure, what could be better than having to suffer the guilt and pangs of conscience of taking another's life, not to mention the pains and humiliation of dropping the soap in the bathroom, just because the person in question did something to spite you, right? I mean yeah certainly you lost your relationship you know, so why not take revenge on the world and pour poison down your soul, maybe that will bring your relationship back... *facepalm* - such thinking is utter nonsense
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Why do you want to lock him for eternity now? Punishments have to be fair you know. You don't put a child in life-time jail because he stole a candy from a supermarket. Neither do you kill people because they have betrayed you.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
The sin is never resolved, but it needs to be paid for.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
It doesn't have to, that's not its purpose.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Not at all Willow - the world is less than perfect even if John is punished or he isn't punished. I freely agree to that. But one is a more just world, while the other is an unjust world. I want to live in a just world, where people who significantly harm others (adultery, theft, murder - such actions) are punished for it - a world where even I would be punished if I committed adultery for example. In fact, if that was the case, I would wish the punishment on myself, because I would deserve it. I don't claim to want to live in a world in which people simply don't harm each other - because I know well enough that such a world would be impossible here on Earth. Not gonna happen. I simply want to live in a just world.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Not at all - again I am not concerned to live in a world where loss is impossible. I am simply concerned to live in a world where justice exists - where if something is taken unlawfully from you, then there is punishment for those who have taken it.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Ummm no, I actually am not saying that. The lost functionality isn't a relationship. It's a capacity for intimacy. Maybe you have forgotten, but I have said that the sexual act itself always has a spiritual component. Due to the nature of intimacy, the sexual act with different partners reduces your capacity for intimacy. Now that is what I've said. This has nothing to do with desiring past relationships - I actually don't desire that.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Nope - see what I have stated above. It's not about past partner, or current partner. It's about the nature of intimacy.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Yes of course. I agree with you. But it's value doesn't only have to do with my capacity for intimacy or hers for that matter. Those are only some of the many factors that come at play.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
No - not at all. I am totally content with the loss of past relationships if that's what you're referring to. If I could live again, I would probably wait for the woman I was certain to marry, and wouldn't be involved in other relationships. People make mistakes - I too made mistakes. I should never have been involved in those relationships to begin with. It would have been better if I saved my capacity for intimacy for my wife. That's all.