The idea of determinism strikes me as a brick wall preventing further speculation or analysis. In philosophy, we are in the business of gaining as much wisdom as possible and I've found that certain dead-end ideas are useless to this profession. I'm unable to mine any further wisdom out of the idea that we are pre-determined and have no free will. It's a philosophical dead-end, if you ask me. We
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Nothing like a little hypocrisy from the locals. Notice all of the people complaining that "They're proselytizing!!!!" Ignoring the ridiculously loose definition they seem to be using, is it suddenly against the rules to proselytize in Utah? Maybe we should have billboards that say "proselytizing of any kind is bad." Will that satisfy these people? Up until now, I th
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I'm glad you're doing OK. I've almost been killed that way. Glad you didn't have to go through some major trauma.
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Sad day. Thanks for everything, Chris.
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I don't need to make an argument for the non-existence of God. Nobody has made a valid argument FOR the existence of such an entity and I'm not going to assume anything without justification. Theists haven't proven their case. It's up to them. I see no reason to assume that their god exists. Also, I've seen people try to say that God is "self-existent." That's pure sophistry. A de
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Here's mine. I like having friends: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1067164860
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"I don't think marriage, in and of itself, is a protected right in the same way as health." ______________________ Marriage is a protected right. "There is another factor - the consent of the marriage partner - which far from being the same as the consent of a doctor to treat a patient." ______________________ You're making a pointless comparison here. "Some peo
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Then who are you suggesting has been offended? What I presented at the beginning of the discussion was a logically-valid argument and now we've degrade into a battle of who's been offended by whom. And since I don't know of anyone reporting being offended, it looks like this is your contribution to the discussion.
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Has someone here been offended? Unless someone has reported being offended, then you're not in any position to say that anyone has.
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That can't possibly apply to me, bona dea. I love disagreement. Among imperfect creatures, that's how things proceed in the quest for truth.
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What you're suggesting is that the right of everyone to the spouse of their choosing also contains the right of each person to take as many spouses as conditions permit, even if that makes it impossible for some of the others to have even one spouse. That isn't going to be acceptable because we can only guarantee that some people will even have that capability. When we consider what we're goin
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"I just said that there are more definitions of polygamy than what you present." _____________________ And in law, we have to address them separately when the behaviors are altogether different and present different risks, if any. If we have to come up with different terms to separate the practice of a formal kind of polygamy, like what we see most of the time in religious polygamy, f
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wittyname, I'm well aware that you and anyone else can conceive of situations where no apparent abuse exists within some arrangements that can roughly be described as "polygamy." The fact that you can imagine non-abusive polygamy isn't going to stack up against the arguments that tie polygamy together with abuse, to say nothing of the staggering level of evidence of this abuse. The f
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You're going to tell my story to me in your words? It looks like you're getting careless and a guy who had a serious head injury at one time is now pointing your reasoning errors to you. I've addressed your exact words already. You can start reciprocating any time now.
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You're going to have to do what I do, wittyname. If you accuse me of something, you're going to have to address my actual words.
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Yes, I figure I'll shut up when they stop. But that's what it's going to take. And then there are people who don't have anything useful to add to the debate. They never shut up either, so I guess we're all in for the long haul. I have to wonder about these folks who complain when someone else tries to look out for victims of abuse.
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We can certainly discuss other types of polygamy, but since this board is focused on Mormonism, I thought I'd leave out other abusive polygamous societies, like what we find in Islam. Their own founding prophet married a nine-year-old girl and then consummated the marriage, doing considerable internal damage to the little girl. There's no honor in Muslim polygamy.
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Did he just say he'd give me a pass? I don't recall asking him for one.
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It is the act of polygamy and the efforts of men to collect as many wives as possible that are dehumanizing factors in polygamy; not dry arguments that expose the hidden reality of the situation. I'd love to debate all of these things, but I will continue to balk when someone attempts to misrepresent me. If you disagree with me, reference my exact words if necessary. Don't change them around i
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wittyname, you're getting bogged down in definitions. You're never going to get anywhere in this debate with that approach. This argument has had a lot of influence in high places, like Canada. Polyamory and polygamy are not the same. The differences are huge. We can account for those distinctions legally too. There is no logical reason why we have to treat the two behaviors the same.
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wittyname wrote: "So let me see if I've got this right... you posted this not for discussion but for praise of your "philosophical" pontificating?" ______________________ Oh get real. If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen. "We can't have our own thoughts on what you have posted, telling us what to think about your post is what you are here for."
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I'm not the one who is assuming that women are goods for distribution. It is societal polygamy that turns them into objects that get distributed to other human beings according to the power they possess.
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But the point is that the single men aren't looking to be free to do other things. They want a spouse too, on the average. And I'm not the one who is turning women into property, which is exactly what happens. That's what I'M criticizing. If you put my argument into terms of your choosing and re-cast it as my argument, you've committed a straw-man fallacy. There is no need for you to explain w
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A lot of people are quick to assume that my opposition to polygamy is due to intolerance of religion or the personal lives of others. Nothing could be further from the truth. Too often when we question the ethics of polygamy, the issue of adult liberties obscures other considerations. Rarely do we hear anyone speak of the rights of children or other society members who may be affected by such a p
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In Eastern religions like Hinduism, nobody is concerned about whether the stories in the scriptures are actual historical facts. That point would be irrelevant, since they are intended to teach a moral lesson rather than a historically-factual lesson. If you went to India and started telling people that the Bhagavad Gita is not a true story, they'd probably just give you a really odd look. It
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Well, when you think about it, nipples are really sensitive.
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Thank you, Lorraine. I put in a request to Susan to list my blog with the others, so you can see it when she gets to it. People can also friend me on FB if they want to keep track of what I'm doing.
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Hi Folks, It's been a while. But to anyone who's curious about what I've been up to recently, I have a new blog that I'm adding to frequently. Oops, I didn't see the message above before I posted this. Go to this page to see my blog link: http://www.exmormon.org/exmoblogs.html Please check in and ask questions if you'd like. You can do so anonymously.
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Thanks Eric. It's amazing the connections I've made here over the years. The people with whom I've corresponded here have changed my whole life. This was the first place I ever started discussed my background in polygamy online.
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Thank you all for the encouraging words. There's just one thought that I can't get out of my head as I'm visiting my parents this year. My dad, for the first time in my life, is no longer a threat to me. It's a sad irony that after all these years, this has been the thing that makes me feel at ease around him. My relationship with him is so complex I could never fully describe it. Part of
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