Teen Abstinence

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Women were inferior beings; even the philosophers, as great as their minds were, were unable to shake these feelings. Socrates says in the Republic that women should share in all the roles in society, not because they are equal to men, but because they are inferior in every single way, so that there is in fact no role where they would be better suited, thus all roles should be open to them. Aristotle says in his Poetics that virtue can be attributed to women and slaves "even though the one is an inferior, and the other a wholly worthless being." This sadly misogynistic attitude permeated nearly the whole of classical pagan society; as inked has been saying, the Church's view and treatment of women was far better than that of the ancient pagans.

[Ireth]

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

Women were inferior beings; even the philosophers, as great as their minds were, were unable to shake these feelings. Socrates says in the Republic that women should share in all the roles in society, not because they are equal to men, but because they are inferior in every single way, so that there is in fact no role where they would be better suited, thus all roles should be open to them. Aristotle says in his Poetics that virtue can be attributed to women and slaves "even though the one is an inferior, and the other a wholly worthless being.".....

And they called themselves scholars and enlightened beings? I haven't heard anything sound more conceited.

[Lief Erikson]

They might have been if they espoused that view in the modern United States of America, or in the European Union. In their century, however, that view was completely normal and accepted by the women as well. We should admire them for the advances they made, rather than fault them for the advances they didn't make.

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

This sadly misogynistic attitude permeated nearly the whole of classical pagan society; as inked has been saying, the Church's view and treatment of women was far better than that of the ancient pagans.

So why are they so far behind the times today then?

[Lief Erikson]

Huh? How are we behind the times?

[Insidious Rex]

Gays. Contraception. Sex ed. Womens roles. Creationism. Noahs Ark. etc. The list is long. Cutting edge perhaps in ancient times. But quite behind the times today (not all branches though).

And are you sure you want to trumpet the fact that christian society is much better then extinct ancient pagan society when it comes to human rights? Im sure its better then nazi society too but I would think by now you would want a higher standard to measure it on.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

So why are they so far behind the times today then?

We aren't. The Church is the sole institution which remains sane in a mad, mad world.

And anyway, Creationism is beside the point, since we are talking about the institutional Church, which has never really mandated it, and still does not.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

Gays. Contraception. Sex ed. Womens roles. Creationism. Noahs Ark. etc. The list is long. Cutting edge perhaps in ancient times. But quite behind the times today (not all branches though).

And are you sure you want to trumpet the fact that christian society is much better then extinct ancient pagan society when it comes to human rights? Im sure its better then nazi society too but I would think by now you would want a higher standard to measure it on.

I completely agree with Gwaimir. And with what Serenoli said on this subject, in the Muslims thread. Modern Western society is deteriorating, morally collapsing, not improving. If we tried to match modern "advanced" morality we'd be taking a steep descent.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

I completely agree with Gwaimir.

Except Gwai said "institution".

But yes, again, I think that what Serenoli said was very true. Western society as a whole has degenerated terribly.

P. S. I just realised, IR, your list was quite inconsistent. You list "creationism", which the Catholic Church does NOT in any way demand from its adherents, and even in the "backwards medieval era", was not required; St. Thomas Aquinas indicated the possibility, at least, of evolution, I believe. The Catholic Church simply does not dogmatize evolution as Western secular society does. But anyway, this seems to indicate that you are referring to the right-wing Protestants, especially the evangelical/fundamentalist branches.

However, you ALSO list contraception, which is VERY much a Catholic issue; I don't believe there is one single denomination aside from Catholicism which prohibits it. Indeed, outspokenly supporting it is all the fad amongst the latest, most up-to-date Protestants, not just leaving it up to the conscience of the individual, so that your list does not seem to apply to any one denomination. Make up your mind, dear boy!

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

P. S. I just realised, IR, your list was quite inconsistent. You list "creationism", which the Catholic Church does NOT in any way demand from its adherents, and even in the "backwards medieval era", was not required; St. Thomas Aquinas indicated the possibility, at least, of evolution, I believe. The Catholic Church simply does not dogmatize evolution as Western secular society does. But anyway, this seems to indicate that you are referring to the right-wing Protestants, especially the evangelical/fundamentalist branches.

However, you ALSO list contraception, which is VERY much a Catholic issue; I don't believe there is one single denomination aside from Catholicism which prohibits it. Indeed, outspokenly supporting it is all the fad amongst the latest, most up-to-date Protestants, not just leaving it up to the conscience of the individual, so that your list does not seem to apply to any one denomination. Make up your mind, dear boy!

Its just a "best known" list in regards to christianity in general. I realize they all dont apply to all types of christianity (which I think I said) but they are all are current controversial issues in regards to Christianity. You can happily ignore the non-catholic issues if you like. I threw contraception in there for you did I not. I could also add stem cells too if you like.

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Modern Western society is deteriorating, morally collapsing, not improving.

Its just cycles. They have been saying the same thing since before Rome. Before Egypt. Its how humans work. Every generation thinks that things are going to hell in a hand basket and the end is nigh. We just happen to get it shoved in our face today thanks to instintanious global media technology.

Frankly, I dont see the promotion of equal rights and civil rights and womens rights and tolerance as a "moral collapse". And we actually see less conflict and suffering now then we did in ancient times. But I do think your condemnation of western society and its ideals has some real merit. We are way too materialistic and we have unhealthy shallow obsessions. Technology has allowed us to focus primarily on pleasure and maximizing how much we own. The term "we have lost our ways" is a horrible mellow dramatic cliche but something can be said for returning to nature. Returning to our roots. Or at least recognizing them in us. Instead of living all our lives artificially which so many of us do. I realize you think the solution to all this is Religion but I say thats just a subset. We need to return to our ancient roots. We need to be conscious of the need for our harmony as a species with mother earth. But theres no turning back on this one way trip to the future Im afraid.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

Its just a "best known" list in regards to christianity in general. I realize they all dont apply to all types of christianity (which I think I said) but they are all are current controversial issues in regards to Christianity. You can happily ignore the non-catholic issues if you like. I threw contraception in there for you did I not. I could also add stem cells too if you like.

Ah, but it's not that they dont all apply to all types, but they don't all apply to ANY types.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by Ireth

And they called themselves scholars and enlightened beings? I haven't heard anything sound more conceited.

But you see, the point was that this sad view so thoroughly permeated the pagan society that even the great philosophers weren't able to shake it.

[inked]

IR,

your list betrays a prejudice against all things christian since it seems to be rather scattered across the various groupings.

Contraception was opposed not only by Rome but also the Orthodox. The Anglican church was the first to enfranchise contraception as preventative.
Abortion has been decried by all christians everywhere until the 20th century produced individuals who were so capitualnt to societal mores they abandoned the totally innocent to legal death. Evolution/Creationism is virtually a solitary American phenomenon in the sense you seem to refer to it.

ETC, ETC.

Is it really that you like no one suggesting that there are other considerations than current society's or yours? The only reason you have the ability to express such thoughts is the legacy of Christianity. Try doing it in a mosque in Iran and let us know how it goes.

ExemplaGratia: edit in from the theological thread on evolution

69. The current scientific debate about the mechanisms at work in evolution requires theological comment insofar as it sometimes implies a misunderstanding of the nature of divine causality. Many neo-Darwinian scientists, as well as some of their critics, have concluded that, if evolution is a radically contingent materialistic process driven by natural selection and random genetic variation, then there can be no place in it for divine providential causality. A growing body of scientific critics of neo-Darwinism point to evidence of design (e.g., biological structures that exhibit specified complexity) that, in their view, cannot be explained in terms of a purely contingent process and that neo-Darwinians have ignored or misinterpreted. The nub of this currently lively disagreement involves scientific observation and generalization concerning whether the available data support inferences of design or chance, and cannot be settled by theology. But it is important to note that, according to the Catholic understanding of divine causality, true contingency in the created order is not incompatible with a purposeful divine providence. Divine causality and created causality radically differ in kind and not only in degree. Thus, even the outcome of a truly contingent natural process can nonetheless fall within God’s providential plan for creation. According to St. Thomas Aquinas: “The effect of divine providence is not only that things should happen somehow, but that they should happen either by necessity or by contingency. Therefore, whatsoever divine providence ordains to happen infallibly and of necessity happens infallibly and of necessity; and that happens from contingency, which the divine providence conceives to happen from contingency” (Summa theologiae, I, 22,4 ad 1). In the Catholic perspective, neo-Darwinians who adduce random genetic variation and natural selection as evidence that the process of evolution is absolutely unguided are straying beyond what can be demonstrated by science. Divine causality can be active in a process that is both contingent and guided. Any evolutionary mechanism that is contingent can only be contingent because God made it so. An unguided evolutionary process – one that falls outside the bounds of divine providence – simply cannot exist because “the causality of God, Who is the first agent, extends to all being, not only as to constituent principles of species, but also as to the individualizing principles….It necessarily follows that all things, inasmuch as they participate in existence, must likewise be subject to divine providence” (Summa theologiae I, 22, 2).

70. With respect to the immediate creation of the human soul, Catholic theology affirms that particular actions of God bring about effects that transcend the capacity of created causes acting according to their natures. The appeal to divine causality to account for genuinely causal as distinct from merely explanatory gaps does not insert divine agency to fill in the “gaps” in human scientific understanding (thus giving rise to the so-called “God of the gaps”). The structures of the world can be seen as open to non-disruptive divine action in directly causing events in the world. Catholic theology affirms that that the emergence of the first members of the human species (whether as individuals or in populations) represents an event that is not susceptible of a purely natural explanation and which can appropriately be attributed to divine intervention. Acting indirectly through causal chains operating from the beginning of cosmic history, God prepared the way for what Pope John Paul II has called “an ontological leap…the moment of transition to the spiritual.” While science can study these causal chains, it falls to theology to locate this account of the special creation of the human soul within the overarching plan of the triune God to share the communion of trinitarian life with human persons who are created out of nothing in the image and likeness of God, and who, in his name and according to his plan, exercise a creative stewardship and sovereignty over the physical universe.

edit: link http://catholica.pontifications.net/?p=1732#comments

It seems a very good statement. Takes a little reading and thinking through.

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by inked

IR,

your list betrays a prejudice against all things christian since it seems to be rather scattered across the various groupings.

No just a prejudice against close minded thinking and purposeless unnecessary dogma.

Contraception was opposed not only by Rome but also the Orthodox. The Anglican church was the first to enfranchise contraception as preventative.
Abortion has been decried by all christians everywhere until the 20th century produced individuals who were so capitualnt to societal mores they abandoned the totally innocent to legal death. Evolution/Creationism is virtually a solitary American phenomenon in the sense you seem to refer to it.

First youll note I never included abortion in that list. Second, I stand by my declaration that ALL those issues (and many others) are current controversies where certain religious people (largely christians in our culture) are pulling back against the progressive thinking of ANYone else who doesnt think like them and doesnt spout their current brand of dogma. No getting around that.

The only reason you have the ability to express such thoughts is the legacy of Christianity.

Please... Freedom of speech is NOT a direct "christian ideal". The founding fathers were particularly prickly about ANY domineering power deciding what people can and cant do or think. That went for The Church as much as it did The King.

Try doing it in a mosque in Iran and let us know how it goes.

I think you confuse me with someone who disparages only the problems with christianity. On the contrary. I disparage the problems with ANY religion that promotes backward thinking and/or extremism. Nor do I buy into your petty 'we are better then them' arguments. I see ANY example of the dangers of religious intolerance as saying something about religious extremism in general and about the humans that follow them. Not about which one is better...

[GreyMouser]

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

Women were inferior beings; even the philosophers, as great as their minds were, were unable to shake these feelings. Socrates says in the Republic that women should share in all the roles in society, not because they are equal to men, but because they are inferior in every single way, so that there is in fact no role where they would be better suited, thus all roles should be open to them. .

Could we see a quote for that?

The Equality of Women (450c-457b)

Women, Socrates argues, are equal to men in all ways except in strength. They should therefore have the same responsibilities as men. If they are to share the responsibilities of being Guardians, then they will need the same type of education and training as male Guardians (451d).


Female guardians would therefore need to be trained music and gymnastics as well as the art of war alongside the male counterparts


Socrates anticipates the objection that the sight of women exercising naked with men might very well seem ridiculous according to conventional Greek customs. If, however, such an arrangement is advantageous to the city as a whole, it doesn't matter if it flies in the face of custom (452).


Socrates presupposes a conservative objection to his belief in the fundamental equality of women (253a-c). The argument that he raises is something like the following:


Premise 1: According to the principle of specialization, each person should work according to his/her own nature.


Premise 2: women and men have different nature


Conclusion: Therefore they should have different functions in society


e.g., men, who are aggressive by nature, should act as rulers and warriors, and women, who have nurturing natures, should act as mothers and teachers


Socrates is presupposing that others may very well accuse him of contradicting himself, since the principle of specialization seems to preclude the equality of the sexes (453b). In his response, therefore, he needs to demonstrate, that, despite their different anatomies, men and women do not have different natures. His argument (453e-454c) is as follows:


do bald men and hairy men have different nature? no: the difference between them is accidental (superficial), not essential


the same therefore can be said of men and women: the difference between them is not essential to their abilities to do the work of ruling and protecting the polis.


Plato is using the term nature here as a kind of aptitude, or the ability to do a certain kinds of work. A physician and a carpenter, according to this view, would have different natures, and therefore should play different roles in the polis (454d).


gender, on the other hand, is irrelevant to men and women's abilities to do the work demanded of Guardians


The only real objection that can be raised to having women in the ranks of the guardians is that they have the possibility of having children, and raising children is a full-time job that preludes all other kinds of work.


Plato's solution to this problem, as we shall see, is to devise a radically model of child raising that can free women to perform other kinds of work in the polis.

http:http://www.molloy.edu/academic/philo...lato/republic/

[GreyMouser]

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

Except Gwai said "institution".

But yes, again, I think that what Serenoli said was very true. Western society as a whole has degenerated terribly.

From when? from when slavery was legal, from when twelve year olds were hung for pick-pocketing, from when the age of consent was 10, from when
women and blacks weren't allowed to vote, from when different punishments were applied depending on your hereditary social status, from when homosexuals were executed? When exactly was that Golden Age?
Don't refer to the generic "good old days"- please give a date when you think Western society had not degenerated, and was superior to our modern decadent times.

Oh, yeah,and to say "there was a lot of backsliding but if everyone had applied their Christian principles..." doesn't count.

[GreyMouser]

And still haven't seen any answer as to why sex with a 10-year-old was acceptable in the Good Old Days, but now is a perversion

[inked]

Because medieval society was structured differently from ours and those were the realities in ages with a lifespan of ~30-40 years. There was no adolescence, only childhood and adulthood. Surely you know that? So, you could get on with your life and sex and job and everything, once you were not a child.

If you want to return to that, fine by me. I think the world generally complains of that treatment of teens though - the un-nice words are street urchins, dump children, etc.

Ah, for the good old days of child labor again, eh, GM?

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by GreyMouser

From when? from when slavery was legal, from when twelve year olds were hung for pick-pocketing, from when the age of consent was 10, from when
women and blacks weren't allowed to vote, from when different punishments were applied depending on your hereditary social status, from when homosexuals were executed? When exactly was that Golden Age?
Don't refer to the generic "good old days"- please give a date when you think Western society had not degenerated, and was superior to our modern decadent times.

Oh, yeah,and to say "there was a lot of backsliding but if everyone had applied their Christian principles..." doesn't count.

I'm not referring to laws, I'm referring to the general ideas of morality and mindset in society. Today, tolerance is the only, the only virtue, with the possible exception of liberality. That is such

But if you're talking about laws, from my PoV abortion alone far outweighs the evils of the old days (which I don't deny). Because I hold the views that a) a fetus is a human life and b) life is sacred, sheer numbers make the current status of abortion abominable to me, and such a wholesale contempt for and disposal of human life (over 40,000,000 human lives so disposed in approx. 30 years) is, given those two premises, simply a terrible, terrible thing, worse than everything you mentioned above. I understand that you disagree on this issue, but surely you can understand that, given these two views, abortion would outweigh the problems of the past?