QUOTE]Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy:
Y'know, Dave, you say all this as if you are an impartial observer, but your opinion is as subjective as you claim that mine is.
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Oh, no, I never said it wasn't. You're just as able to attack my opinion on the basis of logical fallcy, if indeed its there.

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Within the context of the Bible, my statements are objectively correct. What I've said, and quoted at length, is LITERALLY what the Bible says.
It is only through omission and re-interpretation that the Bible verses (quoted extensively above) can be made to endorse homosexuality.
And since you don't seem to have any faith whatsoever in the Bible's credibility as a source of law and authority, there goes your objectivity right there.
I don't disagree with that. I don't think a literal interpretation of the Bible is logical. Literal intepretation has many hurdles to negotiate. Do you include the Apocrypha, or not? Do you literally conclude God made the universe in seven days, or not? Do you think God has the identity of Yahweh Saboath, the brutal and murderous God of Armies who drowned the Egyptians chasing Moses and the Israelites, or is he the Trinity in later books as decided by the theologicans of Cappadocia in the late 300s AD? Is the Sabbath the day of rest to remind us of the Exodus as stated in Deuteronomy, or because God had a day of rest in creation as seen in Pentateuch? I of course am no theologican, but I have read a wonderful book called "A History of God" by Karen Armstrong, who demostrates in an academic yet engaging fashion that the Bible is mostly a contemporary political text. The "discovery" of the Book of Deutronomy itself is a fascinating example of the politics of the Bible. Further, by what moral right is the Bible superior to the Qu'ran? In 610, Muhammed was seized by an angel and give the command, "Iqra!" ("Recite!"), and from his lips cam the divine recital. It sounds like an equally valid religios claim to authority to me.

This does not mean that I discount the Bible out of hand: on the contrary, the Bible contains many fundamental principles which underpin notions such as the rule of law. But I certainly do not believe that it was written by God to guide human behaviour.

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Originally posted by Dave:

Examples of corruption #1,2 and 4 are each plagued by logical fallacies, which I will make clear.
Again, in your opinion. I respect that you have a different view than mine, but I don't think you've proven my statements non-factual and false. You've only STATED that my views are false, without detailing how this is untrue. For me, your OWN statements are a non-sequitor.
And I say that as respectfully as I can. It just doesn't add up for me.
Well, perhaps you'd better tell me how they are a non-sequitur.

To me, yours are plain, especially the slippery slope argument in corruption example #4. No slippery slope is ever valid in logic: "Once you start using marijuana, you'll end up using heroin": "if you bend the constitution to wrongfully imprison one person, soon all persons will be wrongfully imprisoned." The link for this logical fallacy says:

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The slippery slope argument is also known as the thin end of the wedge or the camel's nose. The argument holds that once an exception is made to some socially accepted rule, there will be nothing holding back further exceptions to that rule.

The slippery slope argument is usually used as a commentary on social change, not as a point of logic. It is sometimes known as the slippery slope fallacy because it cannot be made to make logical implications.

Contemporary examples of the slippery slope argument in use:


If we allow women to abort their unborn children, then soon no life will be held sacred.
If we allow guns to be registered, then gun confiscation will follow.
Use of 'soft' drugs such as cannabis will inevitably lead to addiction to 'harder' drugs such as heroin.
These arguments are often based on a perception of momentum in the change of social mores.
Which is precisely the trap you've allowed yourself to fall into. Allow gays the right to get married in a church, and soon we'll all be sleeping with animals." Its a fallacy, without logic.

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Originally posted by Dave:

Dealing with each of those in turn:

1. again, I think you're being ethnocentric. "Morality" isn't limited to just North America and the European peninsula: I assume morality and the effects of morality are global because Christianity is a universal religion.
I'm not entirely clear what your point is. As you know, I live in Florida, and I meet people here who have come from all over the world, from every continent. I almost daily come into contact with people from Europe, China, Japan, India, Pakistan, South Africa, Morrocco, Iran, Vietnam, the Phillipines, and places closer to home for you, Australia and New Zealand. I've regularly spoken to people who are Jews, Muslims, Hindu, and Buddhist. Among all these cultures, I've never heard any raise a favorable opinion of homosexuality.
I see that the standard of one man/one woman is the global standard for marriage, and I've never seen ANY evidence, or any personal opinion of foreigners I know personally, to indicate otherwise. [/qb][/quote]

Ah, I see: you're not saying that homosexuals are the chief cause of the spread of AIDS. Instead, this is logic by consensus, which is another logical fallacy. Here you go:

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"This is right because we've always done it this way." The appeal to tradition is a very common logical fallacy in which someone proclaims his or her accuracy by noting that "this is how it's always been done."

The assumption behind this argument is that whatever reason was used to come to the old methods of thinking is still valid today; often, this is a false assumption to make.

Humans are creatures of habit; this is the likely cause of the popularity (and, unfortunately, the success) of this argument.

Examples:

"It's always been done that way. We've never done it like that."
"You're crazy! Nobody ever thought like that before!"
"This precedent was set 100 years ago and has been followed many times."
The opposite is the appeal to novelty, claiming something is good because it's new.
Its illogical to think that because the majority holds a view, that its right. Otherwise, we'd all be conceding that Hinduism is correct and Christianity is wrong.

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Originally posted by Dave:


Yet you say:

a. AIDS is predominately spread by gays
b. yet only in the West, and not in the rest of the world
c. therefore AIDS is a gay disease and is a form of "corruption".
Dave, you are a highly intelligent and literate person. Could you truly not see my point in what I just previously posted to you?
Nope, I wrestled with it and did not understand it. Let me go through this next explanation.

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I acknowledged AIDS/HIV is not an exclusively gay disease. That in most of the world heterosexual transmission [again, 1)through prostitution, and 2) through heterosexual anal sex, either for pleasure or to avoid pregnancy through vaginal sex] is the major way of contracting the disease, GLOBALLY.

But in the U.S., homosexual males, I.V. drug users, and I.V. drug user/homosexual men, account for over 75% of AIDS/HIV cases in the U.S.
And that many of the 17% or so of heterosexually transmitted cases originate from a secretly bisexual gay man, who then gives it through heterosexual intercourse to a woman. But despite the source, it is sattistically labelled as "heterosexual transmission". I spoke to the CDC directly about this statistical breakdown when I wrote an article about AIDS/HIV in 1993.

But THE POINT is, heterosexual OR homosexual methods of transmitting AIDS are both through illicit sex or IV drug use. Close to 100% of AIDS/HIV cases are transmitted through (by Biblical standards) immoral behavior.
As I said in my last post, homosexuality is not EXCLUSIVELY transmitting AIDS/HIV, but it is certainly a major slice of the AIDS/HIV pie, particularly in the U.S.
Finally, a concession! So its not just gays, its heterosexual but promiscuous people who are corruptive. So, I guess promiscuous people are also not allowed to get married in a church?

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And while I don't single out the gay lifestyle exclusively, I have logically explained my position on homosexuality as a corruptive culture, from a Biblical perspective (detailing gay attempts to alter the obvious literal meaning of Bible scripture on homosexuality),
permissiveness/promiscuity argument (which I think the media attempts to hide from the public, and only display monogamous gay couples, projecting a politically correct notion that gays are "just like us", whereas I've seen numerous reports, mostly on Christian news, that gays are far more promiscuous and risky in their behavior than heterosexuals generally are),
and
cultural acceptance of homosexuality opening the floodgates for a variety of perversions and abberant sexual practices. Which as has been noted, other excesses follow on the coat-tails of gay rights.
While I accept the fact that gays are probably as a broad generalisation more promiscuous than straights, does this mean that non-promiscuous gays are ok to get married in a church?

I've already dealt with your "floodgates" argument above: it can never win.