This may be my biggest post yet. Then again, the biggest fish is the one that always gets away. Oh, well. Let the ordeal begin.
Forgive me. I continually toil under the false impression, no doubt instilled in me at a young age by watching scripted drama, that people are at all reasonable in their capacity to accept criticism, and will admit when they are wrong. No doubt if I had wanted to have any chance of advancing your thinking I should have catered to your feeble ego by saying only nice and flattering things to you, or by being perfectly neutral, despite the fact that either would have been a deceitful show of respect on my part toward someone who clearly has little or no grasp of the subjects he engages.
0 for 1. You don’t win arguments by attacking your opponent’s thought process and demeanor. I thought we went over this. Try again.
Tinpots and mooks, however, deserve nothing but a great big rebuke. This is all some big academic abstraction to you. You talk about sex and all these other things without any regard for the practical consequences of your ill-considered beliefs, and tribalistic contempt (or sheer bewilderment!) toward anything that does not bend to your view of the world. The only thing more unsettling than to imagine you as an inexperienced youngling is to imagine that you have actually been in a relationship already. It would be like putting a dog in charge of a nuclear reactor.
0 for 2, Lord J. You sure know how to wine ‘em and dine ‘em. And what’s with the dog and nuclear reactor? Such processes are automated for maximum security, after all.
Let's just cut out the passive-aggressive crap and get to where you're going with that line of interrogation. You think sex is something which it is not. You get your ideas either from abject Christian morality or else from society's cultural obsession with elevating sex into all manner of things it isn't. There. Agree to disagree. End of conversation. Anything more on the matter would be a waste of time, until and unless you ever realize that sex is not some glorious festival with trumpets and angels that exceeds in profundity and significance all baser human instincts but that ultimate expression of love, without which you feel sex is inappropriate or, worse, defiled. Hah! That'll be the day. Maybe someone more patient than I will give you a nice bop on the head to clear your mind of this Victorian rubbish.
So our views of sex differ from each other. It’s called relativism. I doesn’t take a thought-terminating cliché like “Agree to Disagree” to wedge that between us. I will say, though, that you paint a prettier picture of sexual intercourse than I do. Kudos.
As soon as you learn that not everything which is at least 100 years old is outdated, including ideals, maybe then I will take your arguments more seriously. 0 for 3.
The biggest reason that relationships don't last is that one or more of the participants is a mook, or is at best naive and grossly inexperienced (an excuse that wears thin after the first couple of relationships). Your laughable attempt to pin premarital sex to broken relationships is so off-base that it doesn't even show up on the wall on which the dartboard hangs. Let's face it: Most people are losers, and most relationships aren't healthy. They ought to break up once one of the parties realizes and accepts that. The fact that traditional lifelong marriage declined in popularity once divorce became more socially permissible and females gained greater economic independence and legal protections should tell you a thing or two about your precious "sanctity of marriage," because by your current logic the liberation of females is detrimental to society.
And your attempts to pin broken relationships and divorces on outdated ideals are equally laughable. Who’s to say that both our reasons for failed relationships aren’t applicable, or even mutually exclusive? Think about that.
Ah, yes, the old “sanctity of marriage” stand-by. People like you support same-sex marriage, divorce, and anytime sex while actively engaging in such acts; then you turn around and say “How sacred is your marriage now?” to those who value marriage and families. It’s hypocrisy like that that grinds my teeth.
Never assume anything, because it makes an ass out of you and me.
You don't realize how sexist your views on sex are. You don't realize how controlling it is for you to try and set sex aside as something that should only rightly be accessed on very special occasions or in a very narrow context. You have no recognition whatsoever of the ramifications of these ideas which to you are bubblegum and candy canes of ideological self-indulgence. And, worse, you're not the one who gets the tooth decay and the tummy ache. Instead these punishments are passed along to society at large.
There are such things as limits, even when it comes to sex, or did they not teach you that in Sex Ed?
You’re confusing controlling with caring. Don’t do that.
Oh, my! I actually save my virginity for that one woman I care the most about and love the most in my life as does she, because we both respect each other and share the same values. That automatically makes me selfish… or not.
I think everyone should have as much sex as they want with as many people as are willing, just to catch in the craw of puritans like yourself. There's nothing more infuriating to a religious punk as to see society casting off the yoke of religious oppression, only to not collapse, not implode, and in fact chug happily along even better than before.
Your progressive views not only encourage sexual extravagance, but it’s outright insulting to the religiously inclined who actually see physical intimacy as sacrosanct while people like you get your kicks from your lame attempts to piss them off.
You say I have a lot to learn? Well, look who’s calling the kettle black. 0 for 4.
See...here's a prime example of you not thinking for yourself and instead just passing along what you've heard from others. At the risk of being a broken record, you are so utterly clueless that it boggles the mind. I don't even know where to begin to tell you just how badly you've gotten it wrong. You have no basis for appreciating it. This is all so simplistic in your mind...so easy, so straightforward and pithy and matter-of-fact, when in fact the truth of the matter is twenty thousand leagues over the top of your head.
The fact that I passed along someone else’s words like a messenger doesn’t make the message any less substantial. And yes, I too like the Jules Verne novel of the same name.
The fact that you’re resorting to name-calling shows me that you have no real arguments that merit a response, let alone a rebuttal. 0 for 5.
You can play dirty of you want to, but that’s not me.
I wonder how much we could mine this passage for in a game of "count the logical fallacies"...
I wonder, indeed.
Kind sir...let me try and explain this to you: There is not a person on this Compendium who "agrees" with me. I am enough of my own Josh that even my closest philosophical allies are not in agreement with me on most issues except in the broadest sense of ideological orientation and perhaps in sharing some specific concepts to frame the questions. Agreement is a continuum, and not a very important one at that. It is not disagreement with me that opens the floodgates of condemnation.
Finally, something we can both agree on.
It is ideas themselves. Yours suck. I don't just mean that they're childish or foolish. I mean they're genuinely stupid...the kind of stupid you have to work at to accomplish. You go about this all wrong, by being uncritical of your own positions and reacting poorly to valid criticism from others. You give people of conviction a bad name!
You’ve yet to provide one valid criticism of my arguments outside of name-calling and the use of straw men and false assumptions, so you’ve proven nothing by saying such.
And what’s your conviction? To have everyone help themselves to a sexual buffet? Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s organize a mass circle jerk and ice cream sandwich in a public park! Break out the Vaseline and pillows!
I don't want to give you a hard time. But when you bring a steaming bowl of shit to the table, I lose my appetite. What do you want me to do? Hrm? Leave well enough alone and let you eat whatever you want? No way. If you want to play the game of ideas, you have to accept the possibility of criticism.
I see you have another conviction to add to your plate; to save poor, mindless sheep like me. How noble of you. No really, give yourself a medal.
You have to accept the reality that (*gasp*) your opponent may actually have a point once in a while (according to you, anyways). It’s not a weakness to admit that you might be wrong about something you believe you’re right about. I’ll go first, but that’s only if you’ll follow suit.
I think about what I write--that, while the propagation of the species is crucial to our existence, the actual process of sexual intercourse is only one tiny portion of the overall reproduction and rearing of new life. It is a male-centric, puritanical view which forces male ownership not only on the next generation but on females, by downplaying everything about raising a child that comes after having sex. If you're going to open that can of worms--which you did--then you would still have to admit that sex isn't at the center of everything, you incredible mook, because sex is but one player in an ensemble cast that also includes gestation, childbirth, nursing, providing for, protecting, playing with, and parenting.
Granted, but you must agree with me when I say that sex is square one to all those wonderful processes that lay ahead in the world of child rearing.
This is a new record for name-calling, even for you, Mister J.
You walked right into my trap, but, because this is not scripted drama and not the physical world, you don't even realize it. Surely you can sympathize with my plight! I'm the scheming schemer who has laid an excellent scheme indeed, only to have the bumbling village idiot fall into my web without his ever realizing how dismayed he should be. Be dismayed, for the love of Christ Jesus!
Oh, so you were waiting for an “A-ha!” in this whole verbal exchange? Give yourself a pat on the back. You still write as though this were scripted drama.
Oh, I hate mooks!!
I love you, too.
So wrong about everything, yet so oblivious...you should all collapse into black holes. I can't believe the universe has a stable equation for you! Proof if ever there was of the existence of No Deity Whatsoever! To quote Captain Picard: The universe is not so badly designed! Thus it must not be designed at all.
Funny, I think the same about you, except it actually proves to me that there is a Deity. How about that? And leave Picard out of this! He’s an actor! He reads whatever’s put in front of him, whether it’s true or not.
So you cherry-pick the areas where your arguments will operate. Anything inconvenient to you, you ignore! How wonderful for you. Which gets you a failing grade for the course, I might add. No philosophy of any worth can be suspended when it is exposed to stress.
And any area within a concept you and anybody else doesn’t agree on, you call them all sorts of things without answering the accusation.
Wait! We were assigning grades? Well, do unto others, so…
No debate team would accept you, but that was made evident a long time ago when you laid down the first keystroke that took this away from a fervent, level-headed discussion about sex within a meaningful relationship and turned it into punditry and mud-slinging. What’s it like up there on that pedestal of yours?
Personal experience is certainly not the only avenue to comprehension. Likewise, personal experience is no guarantee of comprehension. Nevertheless, in certain cases it makes for the shortest line between assertion and proof. But I would have argued the same thing without having any personal experience in the matter. Your complaint is a diversion, and is declared invalid.
If it’s a diversion, why did you include with your list of rebuttals in the first place?
How loving it would be, indeed. But since you phrased this hypothetical sarcastically, I can see how very much farther you have to evolve as a person before you are capable of this simple act of maturity and goodwill.
This, I will apologize for (if you’re even capable of doing so). I meant to phrase that in the form of a question. So, it would run “How loving would it be if…?” Nice to know that you divined the meaning behind the question… not.
This will come as a shock to you, but there is also the possibility that I'm right, that I know more about this subject than you do, and that you're wrong without realizing it.
I made that shock apparent to you earlier in this post. Use the up arrow for clarification when you get the chance. You’ve yet to show me how I am wrong. Keep trying.
I mentioned earlier that you give people of conviction a bad name. This is because it's very important for a person to be able to speak in the absolute when it is necessary to protect or advance the interests of society. Yet the absolute is also a favorite haunt of every two-bit believer of This, That, or The Other. You and I differ in the quality of our comprehension as compared to the rigidity of our statements. We're very much alike in both being of a strong opinion on this subject. I wouldn't have swooped down and assailed you if your attitudes on sex were not a serious threat to society.
Slam on your brakes. You think my attitudes on sex are a threat? Didn’t you just say earlier that you wanted everybody to have consensual sex whenever and wherever they want to just to stick it to the religiously inclined? Yeah, but I guess that doesn’t count as a threat to society, but you already knew that, right?
People need to understand--and if not you, then others reading--that the idea that "sex is sacred," and all variations on that claim, are in fact the product of age-old religious measure of control and subjugation. Sex may very well be The Bee's Knees to some people, but, by placing it as this spiffy, pure thing that can so easily be sullied to the detriment of all individuals involved and even to society at large, you corrupt what sexuality really is, and what sex can be all about. In so doing, you reaffirm the same ideas which for thousands of years have been used to dominate the lives of females and keep the masses docile and obedient. And you don't realize it.
Oh, but you don’t corrupt what sexuality is with your convictions? I should call the Vatican and nominate you for Sainthood.
So by sanctifying sex, I’m actually corrupting it and reaffirming “the same ideas which for thousands of years have been used to dominate the lives of females and keep the masses docile and obedient”? What Orwellian doublespeak is this?
The risk we face in this day and age is that, even as organized Christianity fades, the true depths of Christian evil in our society linger on, and are reborn in new, Christianless skins, to be heralded by the next generation as something totally new and original...a way forward...a secret path to the future. But it's not. It's the villains of history preying on the ignorant.
That’s funny. Societies that focused on the repression of religion have done more damage in the last century alone. If you’re looking for the villains of history, you’re pointing fingers at the wrong people.
Sex is not worth more or less than a person decides for it to be. You don't know better than that. You should stop believing that you do.
And neither do you. So stop acting like you know better than me, because I won’t, even if you won’t. At least that’s respectful unto itself.
Ignorance is evil, Genesis. I don't mean it's an evil. I mean that it is evil. Ignorance, and the willful embrace of ignorance, are the root of all evil. I say ignorant as easily as I would say "imperfect," or "not-a-knower-of-everything," because we are. We're all ignorant. It's just that some of us are more ignorant than others, and are more willful in our ignorance than others.
I beg to differ. I’d have to say envy is the root of all evil. Every terrible thing that ever happened in the course of human history is the result of someone (or some people) that desired for something that he or she couldn’t get and got pissed off over. So such people use shortcuts to get what they want to reaffirm their status as a person. From there, the other deadly sins kick in.
Ignorance isn’t even a deadly sin, believe it or not.
And the only way you'll ever learn is to stop thinking you're such hot shit and listen to what other people tell you, and think about it for yourself, critically, and thoroughly, and thoughtfully, always.
Because that’s what you do too, right? Just like you won’t cater to ignorant mooks, I won’t cater to insulting, self-absorbed hypocrites.
Ideas are not toys; they're dangerous; and you're playing with them so foolishly. Here, the Compendium is a small beacon of light. There are many communities where reason is so badly repressed that ignorance flaunts itself without any risk at all. But not here. So long as people say stupid shit here, I hope there will be someone to correct them.
If indeed this Compendium is the beacon of light you’re proclaiming it to be, don’t use it to blind people and drive them away. You apparently believe that men who haven’t seen the light haven’t been enlightened (play-on words).
I think it would be too ironic to end this with a discussion of my thoughts on "the ultimate expression of love"--your phrasing, not mine. Ask me another time.
If I wanted an answer like that, I would’ve shaken a Magic 8-Ball.
Sorry, but you need a taste of your own medicine once in a while.
Come on, Lord J. Don’t burn a bridge over the several misunderstandings between the two of us. I’m getting pretty tired of the two of us having to find everything wrong with what we have to say to each other, anyway. Truce? (Not the village in Chrono Trigger)
