est. 2007

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The Homosexual Debate Continues to Simmer In Barbados

The next general election is over two years away if held when constitutionally due. The health of the economy, freedom of information, integrity legislation and immigration issues we suspect will feature prominently on the next general election platform. Another issue we suspect will be on the list is one of morality, specifically homosexuality. The members…

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joel_palefsky
HPV PREVENTION. Dr Joel Palefsky, an infectious disease expert from the University of San Francisco (left with Dr Mark Gilbert and Dr Natasha Press), told the gay men's health summit in Vancouver that all boys should be vaccinated against HPV. (Nathaniel Christopher photo)

The next general election is over two years away if held when constitutionally due. The health of the economy, freedom of information, integrity legislation and immigration issues we suspect will feature prominently on the next general election platform. Another issue we suspect will be on the list is one of morality, specifically homosexuality.

The members of the BU family who have been with us from our early days know the interest we have shown in homosexuality (do a search of BU using ‘homosexuality’ keyword). It is one of the pillar issues we feature from time to time even if of late it has not featured on the BU rotation with the same early frequency. Interestingly the subject of homosexuality is one which a high level of hypocrisy can be levelled in Barbados. Whether we like the Jamaican approach Prime Minister Bruce Golding has echoed the position of most Jamaicans, zero tolerance to batty men in his cabinet because he feels it does not reflect the public position. Jamaicans appear to wear the label of homophobic like a boy scout would wear a badge of honour.

In Barbados we have a long way to go regarding how as a country we want to deal with the issue of homosexuality. BU remembers very well prior to the last election listening to representatives of  the Democratic Labour Party (Dr. Byer-Suckoo) and the Barbados Labour Party (Reverend Joseph Atherley) dipsy-doodle around the homosexuality issue. In contrast Jamaicans are sending a clear message. Some Jamaican homosexuals are not being deterred and have started underground churches. The venom of Jamaicans directed towards homosexuals have forced many homosexuals in Jamaica to go underground. Stories of Jamaicans suspected of the homosexual lifestyle being publicly beaten by fellow Jamaicans are a matter of record.

The lobby by homosexuals to promote greater tolerance in our predominantly heterosexual and Christian driven societies is gathering momentum. This issue is not going away. The fact many believe homosexuality to be a deviant behaviour does not remove the fact that homosexuality has now become a civil rights mater. The reality that our societies are built on Christian values and by extension the socialization of our people will continue to build tension in the minds of the average Barbadian when confronted with the homosexual issue.

In a related matter we read with interest that  the prevalence of human papillomavirus (HPV) among gay men, especially those already infected with HIV. When you are HIV-positive virtually everyone has HPV,” Palefsky says. And gay men who are HIV-negative are still at high risk. This information was circulated at the Fifth Men’s Gay Summit held last week. The local medical and homosexual community should note the recommendation by Dr. Palefsky who is an infectious disease expert: Palefsky believes that all boys should receive a universal HPV vaccine before they are sexually active “because there’s no way to know who is going to be gay.

Alluded to above Barbadians need to start discussing the matter of homosexuality and how we intend to make the societal changes to accept this group of people who continue to be marginalized.  It would be unfortunate for some if we wait until the next general election to do so. To discuss the matter driven by political considerations will be unfortunate.

349 responses to “The Homosexual Debate Continues to Simmer In Barbados”

  1. sad very sad Avatar
    sad very sad

    no excuse for human homosexuality: animals cant reason !

    sad very sad !

  2. Zoe Avatar
    Zoe

    @Praetorious, Back to a few more of your first post comments and conjectures.

    “In fact, many of the famous characters in the Bible had many wives. From the Bible we see a polygmous view of marriage…”

    While this is true, that many Old Testament characters had many wives; this most certainly was NOT what God ordained or desired, this came about from the SIN that entered after Adam’s fall, and the numerous other things that flowed from mankind’s sin-stained hearts.

    “Human sexuality is not only related to our biological development but to our cognitive development as well. Cognitive development means having split from our biological development means that we will do things *contrary* to our biology. Every time we use contraception we do this.”

    Your use of the word ‘contrary’ is interesting, in relation to ‘…our cognitive development having ‘split’ from our biological development that means we will do things *contrary* to our biology.”

    Naturally, from a ‘secular’ persepective, this makes a statement, without any rational, cognitive understanding of why this occurs!

    Our Creator, Almighty God, made us with biological functions,our physical bodies, and cognitive intelligence, our brains, soul, to work and think in unison, between man and woman, in full complementary function, sexually.

    This ‘bent’ or to use your term, which is correct, ‘contrary’ to our biological make-up, is dealt with extensively in God’s Word, the Bible.

    The Fact of Sin.

    It is emphatically evident that there IS something terribly wrong in the universe, with both the earth and its inhabitants. The source of all chaos, disharmony and strife in the world can be traced back to the existence of SIN.

    A. Creation Declares It.

    All of nature declares that something is wrong. The contrast between ‘Life’ and ‘Death’ harmony and discord, beauty and ugliness, light and darkness, declare the fact of SIN. And this is exactly so, for when *Sin* entered the human race, all nature fell with its king and turned against him (Genesis 3: 17; 8:22).

    B. Human History Declares It.

    The briefest view of human history with its chaos and confusion, war, bloodshed, the spirit of hate and murder, covetousness, moral corruption and dominance resolutely indicates that something is wrong in the nations of the earth. The answer in found in God’s Word, (see James 4: 1-4).

    C. Human Logic Declares It.

    To deny the fact of SIN in the human race would be an insult to all logic. Mankind knows that something is wrong inside himself. He knows that he is out of harmony with himself, that discord reigns within his being. It is the fact of sin that explains it. Educated mentality would seek to deny the fact of sin, but deep within every person’s being, he knows that when he would do good, evil is present with him (Romans 7: 14-21). Man does wrong, because he is wrong. Any one who excercises any measure of intellectual honesty will admit that sin is a fact.

    C. Human Conscience Declares It.

    This is closely linked with human logic, but conscience is a further witness to the fact of sin. The moment a person does something wrong, his conscience smites him and his thoughts begin to accuse or else excuse him (Romans 2: 14-15). The law of conscience gives abundant evidence of sin’s reality.

    E. Human Experience Declares It.

    When one reads the list of horrible sins in Scripture such as Romans 1: 21-32 and Mark 7: 20-21 in the light of the news of today, there is abundant evidence of sin’s expression in human experience. Immorality, crime, violence, perversion, and all forms of lawlessness abound. Sin desires to express itself and the corruption of society in modern civilization is evidence of the fact of sin. Scripture indicates that it will increase in the last day, and is manifestly so, before our very eyes and ears, all around the nations of the world (Matthew 24: 12; II Timothy 3: 1-5).

    F. Human Religions Declare It.

    In every nation there is belief in a god or gods. Nearly every nation has developed some form of religion involving priesthood and sacrifices of appeasement. They seek to appease the gods because of the inner sense of sin and as a realization of their need of redemption. Religion itself is another witness of sin’s reality. However, it is only true Christianity which has God’s answer to the sin problem as dealt with in the person of Christ.

    G. Scriptures Declare It.

    The highest court of appeal is the Word of God. The Bible declares the universality of sin, that ALL men are sinners in God’s sight, needing salvation [Psalm 14: 1-3; 53:1-3; Romans 5:12). Romans 3:23 – “ALL have sinned and come short of the glory of God”. The Scriptures show that there are two major mysteries at work in the universe and all other mysteries referred to in the Word of God find their place under these two. These two mysteries are called “The Mystery of Godliness” and “The Mystery of Iniquity” (I Timothy 3:16 with II Thessalonians 2;7). Thus, good and evil, light and darkness, life and death, Godliness and iniquity are at work in the universe. All created beings, angelic or human, will make their choice and take their place under one mystery or the other. Their choice will settle their eternal destiny.

    So, P, I put it to you, that the only document of antiquity, that spells it out for us, giving us an account of how it all began, when SIN entered the human race, and its utterly devastatingly consequences, IS the self-authenticating, Word of Almighty God, the Bible; whose proclamations, and prophetic revelations, throughout the history of mankind have being accuratly fulfilled, right up to this era, and continues to unfold in world affairs, as He said it would.

  3. Anon Avatar
    Anon

    David // November 28, 2009 at 7:47 AM . It is a known fact that not only do they have the testing done outside of Barbados, but they even arrange for the medication to be delivered in such a way that the news cannot get out in Barbados.

    The saddest part of this is that the course of the virus needs to be monitored regularly by doctors specialized in this area. AIDS of itself does not cause death – rather it is the ailments that occur as the result of the breakdown of the immune system. Therefore, although the taking of medication can be delayed often, of diagnosed right away, for decades, at some stage, in order to avoid irreparable organ damage, the medication must eventually become a fact of life. I hasten to say that I know this only from the work I have done with HIV/AIDS sufferers, thank God.

    The saddest part of this is that AIDS/HIV is not necessarily transmitted by homosexual contact at all. Mere sexual contact can do the trick – an exchange of bodily fluids.

    In Africa, it is an epidemic with even one of the children of Nelson Mandela having died of it and the family acknowledging the cause of death. People like Bill Gates have footed the bill for much of the very expensive medication used in Africa. Then, there is Prince Harry who, following in the footsteps of his late mother, spends a lot of his time as a volunteer working with children with AIDS in Africa in the AIDS hospitals there.

    Meanwhile in Barbados, we have Zoe and others like it who seem determined to Bible-bash everyone into creating an atmosphere of fear and hatred so that, far from the crisis being addressed, it is swept under the Barbados mat and allowed to proliforate. But hey, Zoe is “doing the Lord’s work”. I suggest Zoe look carefully to see which Lord’s work it is doing. Certainly not the one I follow.

  4. Anon Avatar
    Anon

    @Anonymous(2) // November 28, 2009 at 6:49 PM. But you mad? Don’t you realize you can only approach the Almighty through Zoe?

  5. michael Avatar
    michael

    @lux
    what are you taking or should I ask what are you on
    You started coherently,then in the last part of your blog you lost the plot all i can gather from you have written is that you are amoral

  6. Dennis Jones (aka Living in Barbados) Avatar
    Dennis Jones (aka Living in Barbados)

    @Zoe // November 28, 2009 at 6:27 PM. Your answer was long but did not give an answer to my question. Let me just ask what the Commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’ means. A brief answer please.

  7. Dennis Jones (aka Living in Barbados) Avatar
    Dennis Jones (aka Living in Barbados)

    @Zoe, I should have used the words commonly cited, “Thou shalt not murder”. You only need to define murder to answer the question. It is not a riddle or needing a degree. Most definitions of murder include ‘unlawful killing of another human being’. So, all you have to do is define the law nicely and one can kill away, with a lot of latitude.

  8. Lux Avatar
    Lux

    @michael
    not amoral. Just arguing against absolute moral. Morals have developed out of the need to live in social groups. People who do ‘immoral’ acts or selfish acts drain group resources and are outcast. I’m sorry if my blog changed topic halfway, I was trying to address the issues in Zoe’s comment. Next I go on to explain that morals are not exactly the same in every culture, and certainly not in every circumstance. Next I address Zoe’s claim that there is a transcendent human nature, but this is not so as exemplified by research into feral children and eastern block orphanages. I was following the sequence of issues in her comment.
    In my 3rd comment i switch from a summary to the issues which should really be discussed in this debate, not focussing on this weird abstract attack on Praetorious’s character.

    @Zoe. Again. What the hell does this have to do with homosexuality. Are you aware that all of your points in ur last comment are 1. irrelevant to the issue directly 2. entirely subjective, and therefore not facts. How can nature declare that something is wrong?? It is silent, and exists. You put your interpretation on it to think living and dying show something is “wrong”. How can you know that all humans feel there is something wrong in them?? Certainly people with Antisocial Personality Disorder don’t. People who have frontal lobe damage do not realize their own problems. Does this make them inhuman then? So if we all know there is something wrong in us, are homosexuals just more wrong? Whatever. Stop going off on some random tangent that seems as if you copy pasted it out of a textbook. Hoooomooooseexuuuuaaalliiiitttyyyyy.
    This is the debate. Zoom in on the most relevant issues please.

    @ Dennis, thanks. I hope we all remember the the Bible was a tool used by politicians throughout the ages, who would have had need for war.

    Now. Someone answer the questions in my earlier post please.
    And some further ones:
    Why should you make a homosexual person feel hatred or discrimination when they do not hurt anyone else by being gay?
    You do not know what acts they individually, personally perform, you hate them by their mannerisms and personality and discriminate.
    We need to remove killers, thieves, rapists from our society. These hurt people. Why do you lop homosexuals in that group? What do gay people do except love others? Not to mention their great contribution to the arts and culture in many societies, including, yes, Caribbean ones.
    You may say gay people would increase aids. They are a high risk group yes. But heterosexuals have the same ability to spread it. If we weren’t so hateful towards homosexual people, then we could actually get proper treatment for them and research data which could help all members of society.

  9. Praetorious Avatar
    Praetorious

    Hello all, I bring to you:

    “The return of Praetorious: Zoe edition, in which every line is devoted to Zoe.”

    Hello Zoe, (please, call me Praetorious) decided to spend some QT with your posts. This post will be a mixture of direct replies, and me just talking. Forgive me if this is weak, just putting something out there. I really have nothing introductory to say so lets begin:

    Throughout your posts, you have made two arguments, in which you commit numerous logical fallacies. The primary argument is the religious one, the secondary one, are actually pointless arguments about me.

    Oh yes, at the end of this lengthy response, or nearing it, I think I start to lose coherence, and forget a few things. Sorry, i’m tired, lack time, and Zoe just writes so many subjective irrelevant things.

    Religious Argument
    Fallacies Committed:

    Chief Fallacies: Apriorism and Circular Logic, from which stem:

    Argumentum ad antiquatum
    Affirming the consequent
    Fallacy of accent
    Argumentum ad lapidum*
    Conclusions which deny premises
    Contradictory premises
    Definitional retreats
    Straw Man

    Arguments About Praetorious
    Abusive Analogy
    Argumentum ad lapidum*
    Ad hominem
    Straw man
    Fallacy of accent
    Affirming the consequent
    Straw man

    Also, you present opinion as fact, you do know that conjecture means guess right?
    Fear not, I will illustrate each with your posts, and my responses to those posts, or at least try, I don’t have the time to pick them all out. But you do commit all these fallacies..
    Oh yes, bent is word I use eccentrically, not to mean something wrong. In fact, I use bent to refer to some eccentricity. I shouldn’t have done this.

    I will first tackle the religious arguments.

    Apriorism, Argumetum ad Antiquatum and Circular Logic

    Most religious arguments are based on these two fallacies (yours are), and thus, pointless.
    The first fallacy committed is Circular logic. Let me illustrate:

    “ the authenticity of the Bible, as Almighty God’s divinely inspired Word, will be terribly tarnished by your contempt for its self-authenticating Word.”
    Omitting the assumptions you make about me, let me put your posts in precis:
    We know that the bible is true because god says so, we know that god says so, and indeed exists, because it is written in the bible.
    and
    We know about god from the bible. We know we can trust the bible because it is the inspired word of god.
    Any claim based on circular logic, regardless of the truth of its premises is still a logical fallacy, and is thus worthless. That’s why I have little regard for the bible, and indeed why I wish to stay clear of religious arguments. Indeed, your entire religious arguments are destroyed by this one fallacy, by all rights I don’t need to continue here, but I will.
    Oh yes, the Arguemtum ad antiquatum is basically argument from age. Specifically,m the use of ancient text, the bible. In that if it worked from them in those days it must work for us.
    There is nothing in the age of a belief or assertion which alone makes it right. At its simplest, this is a habit which plays husbandry to thought, ie, prevents it.

    This brings to the Fallacy of accent.
    This is usually a fallacy found in a verbal debate, but you make it textually, every single time you enclose one of my words in asterisks, and runaway with what you found. You do this quite frequently.
    @Praetorious, I just want to answer one more of your very biased statements.
    “I do agree that this is an issue which must be discussed in Barbados. But, we should leave poorly reasoned arguments, *religious* arguments and just plain stupid arguments out of the debate.” emphasis added.
    …
    What is so one-sided from the ’secularists’ approach to this issue, is that while they are obviously in the ‘minority’ they want, stubbornly, to insist, that the ‘majority’ of us citizens, who believe one way or the other, in God, and clearly defined moral ‘roots’ that our ‘voice’ must NOT be heard in the public square, and ‘…leave poorly reasoned arguments, *religious* arguments and just plain stupid arguments out of the debate.”
    So, P, just your ’secularists’ value-free, value-netural, godless ‘anything’ goes system of immorality, must have the say over all others, who constitute the majority of citizens, whose voices still determine in our democracy, who rules, and upholds our public policy?”

    Here, you have chosen to put the stress on religious in my sentence, failing to recognise that I said:
    “ we should leave poorly reasoned arguments, religious arguments and just plain stupid arguments”
    I placed no stress on any of the three, and evidently hold stupid arguments, poorly reasoned arguments AND religious arguments in the same regard. Why then don’t you pick out * stupid * arguments, and post a dissertation on why stupid arguments should be regarded and tolerated, as you have so done for religious ones?

    I will explain why you did it, you see, it is evident that your agenda Is a religious one.
    Yes, we should leave religious arguments out. Simply because there are so many religions, and so many different denominations and interpretations within those religions, it would be pointless to make public policy based on them. In addition, all these religions with accompanying holy texts are quite ancient, and rather myopic. They could not and do not see into the future and the world we live in today.
    And if you did make a law based on one particular religion, automatically you run into the muck of religious oppression, say, when that law conflicts with the beliefs of another group of religious people.

    But there is another more serious reason why we should leave the religious argument out. The religious argument is dangerous. When you use religion to support a point, and the opposition counters that point or indeed the idea, it can be taken that they are not only against the idea, but against your religion.
    This makes it easy to rally support, because people of the same religious affiliation will retaliate on the basis that the opposition is against that religion, without regard to the issue in question. No distinction is made between the point, and the reasoning behind it.
    Clearly you have done this.

    What is so ironic, as I stated in previous post, is that christians such as yourself complain about ‘secularists’ wanting to influence the majority, when the christians themselves seek to do the same.
    Secular humanism isn’t an anything goes system, in fact, some christians and religious people also subscribe to secular humanism. Perhaps you should read about secular humanism before making such poorly informed statements.
    Democracies are funny, when since are 1000 people smarter than 1 person or vice-versa?

    Apriorism

    As I said earlier, all religious arguments are apriori.
    You see, the way things are is that we allow facts to be the test of our principles. When we see what the facts are, we can retain or modify our principles, or throw them out altogether if so necessary.
    To start out from principles from the first, and then to use them as the basis for accepting/rejecting facts is the wrong way around. Granted, we do need principles to determine if something is a fact, but in the case of this fallacy, it occurs when too much primacy is given to a set of principles.
    This fallacy is used by those whose beliefs have very little grounding in reality anyway.
    In short, what happens is that you throw out the evidence in a garbage bag of preconceptions.
    Basically, “God done it!”.

    But what you do is turn on your bible/god/opinion filter to either ignore or twist what evidence is there which contravenes your principles, even when this evidence comes from your bible.

    Here’s a gem, an example of Apriori, affirming the consequent. In which your opinion of marriage causes you to make the following statements

    “You also contend, “In addition, there is no verse in the NT which condemns polygamy, or even defines marriage and one man and woman.
    An argument from silence certainly does not establish what you are saying.”
    Wow Zoe, did you completely ignore the verses I posted showing these polymous relationships?
    There is no proof from the New Testament that marriage as god originally intended was between one man and woman.
    “Yet, there is ample proof from the New Testament that ‘marriage’ as God originally intended, prior to the fall of Adam into to sin, WAS between one man, and one woman, becoming ‘one’ flesh, in the beauty and sanctity of marriage, until SIN messed it all up.”
    In the above we have the a priori and affirming the consequent. In addition, where is your evidence for this. This is a conjecture. Oh yeah, it is DEAD WRONG.

    The in response to my statement:

    “In fact, many of the famous characters in the Bible had many wives. From the Bible we see a polygmous view of marriage…”
    You write:
    “While this is true, that many Old Testament characters had many wives;”
    No need to continue. It’s true.
    Oh no, you continue:
    “this most certainly was NOT what God ordained or desired, this came about from the SIN that entered after Adam’s fall, and the numerous other things that flowed from mankind’s sin-stained hearts. “

    Were is your evidence for this? If these biblical figures were sinning for having more than one wife and concubines, how come they were not punished?
    It clearly states in Exodus 21:10, that a man can marry an infinite amount of women, without any limits to how many he can marry.
    If polygamy was a sin, why then did god not punish David for having 6 wives and all his concubines?
    Then in Deutoronmy 21:15, It clearly says “If a man has two wives” so obviously it was an occurrence that a man had at least 2 wives.
    The bible nowhere condemns polygamy, either explicitly or through implication.
    I will not go back into this, you are wrong about polygamy in the bible, and wrong about marriage being explicitly stated as between one man and one woman. Stop now.
    I will offer you this though. The reason why christian’s view polygamy as sinful and immoral, was because back in those days, under roman rule, polygamy was against the law. The bible teaches that you as a christian must adhere to the law of the land. Over thousands of years, that law never changed.

    Another more complex a prior, mixed with Cum hoc ergo propter hoc

    Natural law possesses one of the longest narratives in the history of human ideas, and clearly derives from an ‘transcendent’ being, not subject to the limitations of, the material universe, that inherently guide us toward what is the common ‘good’ so that we can co-exist rationally, without which, there would be utter chaos. And this principle of ethics and moral certitude, has been found way back in every civilization of antiquity, notwithstanding man’s bent, driven by sin, which always carries us in the wrong moral and ethical direction, which has, and continues to cause terrible pain and unrest for all societies, every where, bar none!
    This inherent “unwritten law” of moral and ethical awareness, is indelibly imprinted in the ’soul’ of every living human being, regardless of where you look, it transcends culture, race, and ethinicity, and constantly appeals to an intuitive basis for ‘morality’ that stands over and above humanistic convention.
    Therefore, as such, human conventions, must conform to these unchanging principles of justice, or risk the warth of our Creator, Almighty God.
    History is replete with evidence, from civilization to civilization, that whenever mankind violates these inherent principles of moral and ethical conviction and certitude, the price he pays, is the ultimate demise and ruination of all that he tried to build, outside of Almighty God’s blueprint for him.
    This is evidently seen, in the recorded annals of ancient history of all the so-called great empires, who flagrantly, and blatantly violated all of God’s moral, ethical, and righteousness standards, and all came crashing down in utter ruin, one by one.
    God’s Word, which is forever settled in heaven, never, ever fails in its pronouncements, one way or the other.”

    “These universal forms of natural law, (i.e., morality, ethics) are eternal and changless. For, they provide the intelligibility for all particular beings. In this way , we see the first rendering of a “human nature” that applies to all members, regardless of their temporal existence or their geographical location. This God given universal nature, so inherent in mankind, insures the constancy, and continuing *identity* of the particular. Thus, the form provides an ontological grounding for epistemological certainty. That is, we can be certain that even though particular humans may vary in shape, size, colour, and appearance, the universal form of humanity will not vary from place to place or from time to time, since, it is the eternal changeless form in which all the particulars participate.”

    Affirming the Consequent/ Definitional retreat.

    You do this quite a bit. I can’t blame you for it though, because in the case of your religious agenda, affirming the consequent stems from Apriori.

    “Come now P…you can conclude..that the union between Adam and Eve, without the specific word marriage..qualifies this union..as a marriage”

    Umm, no no it doesn’t. If it doesn’t say it’s a marriage, it is up to us to decide what the union was. For all I know it could be a worker’s union. All it says is it is some sort of union.

    To put it another way,

    “When two people are married, they are in a union, here are two people in a union, so obvioulsy they must be married”

    For valid logic, we must affirm the antecedents in order to prove the consequents, in this fallacy, you affirm the consequent to deduce the antecedent. This is worrisome because it is the basis of Circumstantial Evidence. Are you a Lawyer?

    If what you say is true, a union is a marriage, a civil union between homosexuals in which they exhibit all the characteristics of some union likened to marriage, would mean that they are married.
    Then I could say something like:

    Come now Zoe, as an intelligent, obviously well read woman, using logic, surely you can from the very Logic of implication, reasonably, rationally, and coherently, conclude, that the ‘union’ between Adam and Steve, without the specific word ‘marriage’ used in the text, qualifies this union, between one man and one man, as a ‘marriage’ as it came to be known thereafter (marriage between homosexuals was legalised of course).

    Another case of you affirming the consequent:

    “Homosexualty had been condemned in both Leviticus (18: 22; 20:13), where it is abhorrent to God, defiling, punishable by death, and in Deuteronomy (23:18), where it is forbidden to bring the hire of harlot or homosexual (“dog”) into the house of God in payment of religious vows, both being abhorrent to God.”

    That verse says “ Thous shalt not bring the hire of a whore, or the price of a dog, into the house of the Lord thy god for any vow: for even both these are abominations unto the Lord Thy God”

    This verse refers to Forbidding that any income gained from evil things should be applied to the service of God.
    It is left to interpretation what “dog “ refers to. Actually, it refers to someone who has sodomised others. It refers to an act, not being a homosexual. Definitional retreat anyone?
    Good biblical hermeneutics? No.

    Conclusions which deny premises, Contradictory premises

    This one is my favourite, because it cut down on the work even more.

    In response to my statement:
    “In fact, your “NB” shows that all you can go on is your own personal interpretation of the Bible, it being subject to your own prejudices, biases and intelligence of course.”

    You write:
    “That premise of yours is not right, it flows from your own prejudices, biases, as well, dealing with a subject matter, that you obviously have little or no regard for, and hence your prejudices and biases against the authenticity of the Bible, as Almighty God’s divinely inspired Word, will be terribly tarnished by your contempt for its self-authenticating Word.”
    Then
    “Also, I do not have my own personal interpretation of God’s Word, yes, as a fallible human being, I would naturally have my own presuppositions, as we all do, however, like all disciplines, theology and bible, has its own established principles of interpretation, which are governed by sound Biblical Hermeneutics, Contextual Analysis, and Linguistic Exegesis, just like Medicine, Law, Engineering, etc, have theirs, yes, therefore when one is guided by these sound, historic, grammatico, linguistic rules and principles of correctly, ‘dividing’ His Word, one is not apt to go too far wrong.”
    Then
    “Biblical Hermeneuctis and Linguistic Exegesis, is a very detailed and absolutely necessary course of study at Bible College and Seminary, without a proper grasp and understanding of these detailed principles, one will NOT be in a position to ‘correctly’ divide God’s Word. “
    “The above was taken from “Interpreting The scriptures, A Textbook On How To Interpret the Bible, by Kevin J. Conner and Ken Malmin. And the forgoing, was only scratching the surface of this indispensible work, which covers many other principles that are absolutely necessary in rightly, ‘dividing’ the Word of Truth!”

    Thank-you for being self contradictory, you have shown that you do indeed have prejudices and biases which affect your interpretations, namely your use of “good biblical hermeneutics” and the content of this author’s book. By the way, good according to whom?
    You are however correct in saying that I have little or no regard for the bible. I explained why above.
    Another wonderful thing you have done is shown that unless one has studied theology, studied hermeneutics, studied linguistic exegesis, studied Hebrew, Greek, Latin, ancient cultures, studied philosophy and a whole host of other subjects, you are not in any position at all to interpret the bible, much less use it to formulate laws, formulate morals, etc. Now, how many people have studied at least one of these subjects? How many people randomly pick out bible verses to support positions? How many leaders and authorities do this very thing, that is seek to make law based on the bible, without having any background in any of these fields
    Thank-you for making every biblical argument on this forum, including your won, utterly irrelevant (unless you can provide us with some certification that you have indeed studied these things).

    Argumentum ad lapidum*

    This is also related to your wonderful use of A priori.
    Evidence cannot be dismissed because it fails to conform to an existing opinion. Much as we would like to toss out things which offend our views, it is a fallacy. By refusing to admit material which mat be relevant to a sound conclusion, we proceed in ignorance. Ignorance is a more reliable source of bliss than correctness.

    We see this when I give you obvious biblical passages and you just ignore them altogether.

    Arguments About Praetorious

    Straw man
    Abusive Analogy
    Argumentum ad lapidum*
    Ad hominem
    Straw man
    Fallacy of accent
    Affirming the consequent

    This is actually quite funny, because every argument you make here is a hilarious form of the straw man fallacy utillising the other ones listed, either you do this intentionally, or you haven’t been reading my posts too well.

    Straw man et al

    Yes, I do like logic, it’s good stuff.
    You say

    “@Praetorious, Getting back to your contention that because the word ‘marriage’ is not used in Genesis 2:24, that there is no institution of marriage in the Bible. Suffice to say, I believe my post of last night, logically, and coherently implies, that the union of becoming ‘one’ flesh and, as was used in the following texts from the Old Testament, confirm that there was such an institution of Marriage.”

    “You say, “Yes, Zoe, I know that one. (Gen. 2:24) You will however observe that the verse doesn’t say the word marriage at all.”
    Come now P, as an intelligent, obviously well read man, using logic, surely you can from the very Logic of implication, reasonably, rationally, and coherently, conclude, that the ‘union’ between Adam and Eve, without the specific word ‘marriage’ used in the text, qualifies this union, between one man and one woman, as a ‘marriage’ as it came to be known thereafter”
    Then you go on to quote verses about wives and marriage.
    (If you don’t remember from above, that was affirming the consequent.)
    You’ve got my arguments confused or, you’re constructing a straw man. I am not arguing that there is no institution of marriage, I never denied this.
    You will note that I quoted verses about wives and marriage as well. I simply stated the fact, that in the bible, marriage is nowhere defined as only one man and one woman, hence this can’t be used to bar homosexuals from marriage. So, basically, all points you have raised, with regards to this (where you make it seem like I say there is no marriage in the bible) are now irrelevant. What you have basically done is construct an argument for me and counter it. No need, it was never mine in the first place.
    So basically, all of your second post is irrelevant as well. Thanks for helping me make quick work of it.

    Here’s another it is fallacious because it is some sort of straw man, and because it is irrelevant:

    “ “I hate “bible-boxing” it’s pointless. I make this claim “Presuppostion” and prejudices, rather than “biblical evidence, have shaped the tradition of biblical interpretaion.”
    Your “bible-boxing” is more appropriately called ‘proof-texing’ that is, taking a single verse, apart from all other text dealing with the same subject matter, and seeking to prove something. Taking a ‘text’ out of context, invariably becomes a ‘pretext.’ “

    Zoe, I never said I was bible boxing, I said I hate it. You just wasted time grey matter.
    Hmm, so if I hate bible boxing, which I do, and you equate it with proof-texting, then I hate proof-texting.
    By the way, I have not taken any verse out of context, I have given it to you unaltered. How can I change the context of the verse.
    Indeed, where is your evidence that shows I changed the context of a verse from one meaning to another, and who’s to say that your interpretation is correct anyway?
    In fact, I have done what you and everyone posting bible verses on this forum, and indeed, in all other public forums have done. Take a verse and use it. SO if I am guilty of proof-texting, so are you. You have in every post, mined the bible for any and all scripture to support a position. Then you go on to talk about good biblical hermeneutics.
    TO quote you on what you have done:
    “This IS not good biblical hermeneuctis[sic]!”

    Abusive analogy and ad hominem:

    Zoe // November 28, 2009
    “I just carefully re-read your first post on this thread, Nov, 22, @12:16AM, where you make several conjectural statements, naturally from your obvious ‘humanistic’ secular worldview perspective, which are essentially, ‘relativist’ in orientation, that there is no absolute, moral right or wrong, as is reflected in your statement:”
    How do you know this? Can you read my mind? I never said anything about my morals and world view. Any argument put forth to this is automatically false and pointless. What you have done is made a conjecture, a guess about my morals, and form an argument about them. YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT MY MORAL VIEWS ARE ZOE.
    To my statement:
    “There is nothing which explicitly says what we ‘can’ or ‘cannot do, and which as certains a ’sole’ use for our members. That is something entirely dependent on us, were you born with an instruction manual tied to your toes?”
    You write:
    “You then conclude , “I do agree that this is an issue which must be discussed in Barbados. But, we should leave poorly reasoned arguments, religious arguments, and just plain stupid arguments out of the debate.”
    So, P, only those holding to your ‘relativist’ worldview, no moral absolutes, no such thing as ‘right’ or wrong’ no such thing as ‘good’ and ‘evil, anything goes, as long as you do not infringe on any one’s basic rights, one is free to do as you please, morally, no consequences to worry about at all, a literal ‘value’ free, ‘value’ neutral society!”

    Zoe, that statement concerned the functions of parts of the body. What does that have to do with a my take on morals?
    You then go on to say wonderful things about my morals, drawing analogies about them. Saying things about my morals such as ” anything goes”, “ there is no.. right or wrong”, “value free..value neutral”.
    Nothing but pure assumption, and pure conjecture on your part. Which you use to form a straw man, but more seriously, you draw an analogy which is used in an attempt to bring me into scorn or disrepute. You are directly comparing my moral views (according to you btw) with something which will elicit an unfavourable response from people. Namely, those who hold to good morals and religious ones.

    “I will be responding to your other conjectural statements from this first post of yours, as they go to the heart of your ’secular’ humainstic worldview; while you take your time in responding to my other posts.”
    Don’t bother, I haven’t sated anything to which you can post a reply. What ever you reply to is indeed your own assumptions and conjecture
    In addition, you would only be moving away from the issue of homosexuality. In fact, your entire argument would be a wonderful straw-man/ad hominid mixture.

    Sigh. Here is where I simply speak. I am tired now, so I won’t be putting things you’ve sdaid under the headings of their fallacies…Sorry everyone.

    “Leviticus 20: 13, “If a man also ‘lie’ with mankind, as he ‘lieth’ with a woman, both of them have COMMITED an ABOMINATION: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.”
    You say, “This verse DOES NOT condemn homosexuality, but sexual acts between men, acts which are not specified.”
    “I can only concede to the verses which use the word homosexual.”
    Come on P, what kind of intelligent reasoning is this? “

    Zoe. Thank you again for this gem. Homosexuality is an identity, not an action. So yes, this verse only condemns sexual acts between men, and not homosexuality itself. I say I can only concede to verses which explicitly state something about homosexuals because the verse obviously refers to the identity of homosexuality. Both you and Anonymous make this error.
    So when you say:
    “In the New Testament, *Homosexuals* “will not inherit the Kingdom of God” (I Cor. 6:9-10);”
    and other such verses, I cannot say that those verse do not condemn homosexuality. Ugh.

    Also:
    “Because, the modern word ‘homosexual’ is not used in the Old Testament,but, rather the euphemism ‘lie’ does NOT validate your illogical rejection of what is emphatically stated, that ‘IF’ a man ‘lie’ in other words, when a man lieth with a woman, in this context, he/she is having somekind of ’sexual’ activity, and, what God deems an abomination, is when two men, replace this normal activity, man/woman, with being together for the purpose that He Created a man and woman for.”
    I never denied this, in fact, I clearly stated “This verse DOES NOT condemn homosexuality, but sexual acts between men, acts which are not specified.”
    Contrary to your belief, I actually am familiar with biblical euphemisms.

    “@Praetorious, Let us get back to your erroneous interpretation of the ‘Sodom’ issue, you say:”
    Erroneous, interesting.

    “Almighty God, in His Omniscience, (ALL knowing) certainly decided to ‘destroy’ Sodom and Gommorah, because, “And the LORD said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gommorah IS GREAT, and because their SIN is VERY GRIEVOUS.” (Gen. 18:20) emphasis added.”
    Yes, I agreed, I even quoted the self same verse.
    “Therefore, when the angels made their appearance, to DESTROY these twin towns,”
    Actually, the angels were sent to warn Lot, not destroy the cities.

    “Now, here are the two verses that you simply will not deal with honestly, trying to skirt around to avoid the obvious ‘intent’ of the Sodomizing ‘men’ of Sodom.
    “But, before they (the angels) lay down, the ‘men’ of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both old and young, ALL the people from every quarter: And they called out Lot, and SAID unto him, Where are the MEN (angels) which came in to thee this night? BRING them OUT UNTO US, that we man *KNOW* them.” ( Gen. 19: 4,5) emphasis added.
    As I explained in an earlier post, the Hebew ‘euphemism’ to ‘KNOW’ as the men of Sodom clearly said, ‘…that we may ‘know’ them” was to ‘force’ *rape* homosexually, these two angels, who appeared as men. This is precisely why Lot (v.3) insisted that the visitors come into his house, because he knew the danger they would face from the Sodomites, ‘homosexuals’ of Sodom if they stayed all night outside.”

    Zoe, are you paying attention, I did deal with this verse, after all I did say that the only apparent sin was intent to rape. Also, what if they wanted to rape the angels with sticks? Would that be “homosexual rape”. By the way, rape, is just rape. It doesn’t matter what its done, how it is done and who does it to whom. The fact is, it’s rape.

    “Yes, as Ezekiel 16: 49, states, “Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of *idleness* was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strenghten the hand of the poor and needy.”
    But, verse 50 then goes on to say, which you omitted, “And they were haughty, and COMMITTED ABOMINATION before Me, therefore I took them away as I saw good” (v.50) “
    Yeah, I didn’t quote that because it is irrelevant, it directly follows from the first one, that is those sins of pride etc.
    “The obvious ‘committed ABOMINATION, before Me, WAS the blatant homosexuality, that was pervasive throughout Sodom,” “
    No, no it’s not, here we see your prejudices influencing your interpretation. What happened to good biblical hermeneutics? Just because we are shown one instance of an abomination, does not mean that the abomination was the only one that pissed god off enough for him to destroy the cities. It doesn’t say what abominations were committed. You do know that cutting one’s beard is an abomination to yahweh, wearing a garment of two different weaves and materials is also an abomination. For all we know, the people of those cities were beard cutting, cotton-polyester wearing folk, and amongst these folk, there was only one group of men, who got a kick out of raping people, men and women included. Just because you have one group of men who attempted to rape other men, does not mean that all of the inhabitants wanted to do so. Perhaps these people were so free with there sexuality, that they had “known” everyone in the city, and just wanted some fresh meat. The fact is, all we can do, and all you have clearly done, is to speculate”

    “In seeking to bring Ezekiel 16: 49, alone, isolated from the entire chapter, which is not good hemeneutics, as it lifts a ’single’ verse from its chapter ‘context’ which must never be done, as any one verse of Scripture, must always be read in the ‘context’ of the preceding and following verses, in order to properly understand what is the import of its statement, and meaning.
    Zoe, you should do some thinking here. Verse 16 of Ezekiel details the sins of Sodom. How am I taking it out of context when I say what the sins of Sodom were according to that verse?
    Ezekiel 16 is A parable showing the first low estate of the Jewish nation, its prosperity, idolatries, and punishment.

    “Your use of the word ‘contrary’ is interesting, in relation to ‘…our cognitive development having ’split’ from our biological development that means we will do things *contrary* to our biology.”
    Naturally, from a ’secular’ persepective, this makes a statement, without any rational, cognitive understanding of why this occurs!”
    Zoe, I explained it. It occurs because our cognitive and biological development are separate. We use our brains and minds in complex ways. Ways which allow us to conquer or biology.
    And what do you mean a ‘secular’ perspective?

    In your last post, you talk about nature declaring things to be wrong. Nature doesn’t declare anything. Nature knows no right or wrong because nature itself is not conscious. This is personification.

    “The Fact of Sin.
    It is emphatically evident that there IS something terribly wrong in the universe, with both the earth and its inhabitants. The source of all chaos, disharmony and strife in the world can be traced back to the existence of SIN.”

    Zoe, you can’t say there is something terribly wrong with the universe because it is no p ossible for humans to know about everything occurring in the universe. Also, you creationists believe that we are the only intelligent life, so there can only be things wrong here on earth. Then again, the bible does say that the earth is all that exists in the universe so I suppose you’re right.
    “The contrast between ‘Life’ and ‘Death’ harmony and discord, beauty and ugliness, light and darkness, declare the fact of SIN”
    This makes absolutely no sense. Because someone may look beautiful and another ugly is proof of sin. Zoe, making no sense here.
    “The source of all chaos, disharmony and strife in the world can be traced back to the existence of SIN.”
    Hmm, so he hurricanes, earthquakes and other natural occcurences which cause these things in the world are due to the “existence of sin”. Wow. Not even, sinful people cause these things, but the mere existence of sin. That’s equivalent to punishing people for drug use simply because drugs exist, despite the fact that those people may have nothing to do with narcotics in any form or fashion.

    “The briefest view of human history with its chaos and confusion, war, bloodshed, the spirit of hate and murder, covetousness, moral corruption and dominance resolutely indicates that something is wrong in the nations of the earth. The answer in found in God’s Word,”

    Funny, many of the most grievous atrocities were due to religion. Inquisition anyone, holocaust anyone (you do know that Hitler was a catholic who never renounced his catholicism, the catholic church maintained contact with him throughout the war and declared his birthday a holiday or some such nonsense. Hitler’s hatred of the Jews is also because he was had seen a play in which Jesus was crucified by the jews.). Witch hunts anyone? World trade centre anyone? All the religious extremism in the world anyone?

    “Human Logic Declares It.
    To deny the fact of SIN in the human race would be an insult to all logic. Mankind knows that something is wrong inside himself. He knows that he is out of harmony with himself, that discord reigns within his being. It is the fact of sin that explains it. Educated mentality would seek to deny the fact of sin, but deep within every person’s being, he knows that when he would do good, evil is present with him (Romans 7: 14-21). Man does wrong, because he is wrong. Any one who excercises any measure of intellectual honesty will admit that sin is a fact.
    “

    Human logic doesn’t declare the fact of sin, what ignorance is this? Human logic, First Order Logic, is used to make conclusions…Religion, especially christianity, thrives on convincing people that they are guilty of something, that there is something wrong inside all of us, playing on our insecurities. Man doesn’t “know” there is something sinful about himself until some religion asserts that. There is nothing inherent or implicit in humans that says we are sinful.

    In fact, the concept of sin is a human invention, a religious invention. Tribal religions and such have no concept of sin.
    To F and G:
    Just because something claims something doesn’t mean it’s true.

    Sigh.

    Sin was invented to control people. Convince enough persons that there is something inherrently wrong with them, and that only you have the solution, et voila.
    Christianity takes the cake for asserting the concept of original sin, that we are all damned regardless.
    Throughout history this has been used to control people and wage wars. Foolishness like indulgences, limbo…
    The worst thing is this:
    The uncertainty. No one knows what happens after we are dead, so you give them a story and tell them how they must live their lives, in pursuit of the afterlife. They forsake what they have allowing the religious leaders to control the only certainty, that is their life in the here and now, for something which may or may not exist. Absolutely detestable.

    The most preposterous notion that H. sapiens has ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all history.
    The second most preposterous notion is that copulation is inherently sinful.

    “So, P, I put it to you, that the only document of antiquity, that spells it out for us, giving us an account of how it all began, when SIN entered the human race, and its utterly devastatingly consequences, IS the self-authenticating, Word of Almighty God, the Bible; whose proclamations, and prophetic revelations, throughout the history of mankind have being accurately fulfilled, right up to this era, and continues to unfold in world affairs, as He said it would.”

    Sin lies only in hurting others unnecessarily. All other “sins” are invented nonsense.
    I put it to you that this is true, and that you commit sin when you hurt homosexuals emotionally, spiritually, mentally and physically.

    No, no it’s not. There are many other texts which talk about how it all began, what went wrong, and how to fix it. The bible is just another one. The new testament is just a copy of other stories, like those of Horus, Mithras, Dionysus, krishna…How do you explain those stories which predate the bible, but are essentially the same?
    The onus is on you to assert that your particular fairytale is the right one. What if you’re wrong.

    Zoe, you are a very resourceful lady. You seem intelligent and capable. But you are still wrong. All of your arguments are completely irrelevant. Is it possible for you to take your nose out of the bible and tackle a social issue from another perspective? Is it possible for you to argue your point without using your crutch of religion and the bible?
    You do have a brain don’t you? You are capable of forming your own ideas based on your experiences and evidence, and not superstition right?
    You need to understand as well, that no idea, no matter what it is, is exempt from criticism. You need to recognise that an arguments weakness is proportional to it’s claim of infallibility.
    The bible is full of errors and contradictions, prejudices and just plain archaic, ignorant, tribal nonsense. You can use as much hermeneutics and exegesis as you want, but they will not be able to account for these things. They can show you how to interpret, but have nothing to do with the actual content of the book. If this thing is the word of god, why does god contradict himself?

    Another thing I find funny is that you so vigorously defend one of the most misogynistic texts in existence. You are aware that a woman was regarded as chattel, in some verses less than an ox.

    Again, your arguments are based on fallacies, and are thus irrelevant.
    Can you stop arguing asides and get back to homosexuality?

    Everyone, I’m sorry for writing something so lengthy, and sorry if it lost coherence.

    Best Regards and have a good bank holiday,
    Praetorious

  10. Amused Avatar
    Amused

    Well done, Praetorius. Long, but worth the read. I suppose now we will have a contradictory and flimisily-based reply full of biblical quotes and personal emphases from that self-annointed messenger of God, Zoe. Ah well, someone has to protect the business of extracting money from the credulous and fearful by the religious organizations in this world of ours.

  11. Avatar
    Anonymous

    Praetorius

    You agreed that that the Bible condemns sexual activities between males. I am at a loss as to why you need details on specific acts which according to you does not define homosexuality anyway, re: your assertion “homosexuality is an identity, not an action”.

    Why do you attempt to rebut a religious argument through logic and evidence when the main if not sole basis of the religious position is one of faith? For a busy person you do like to waste time.

    However, your assertion to which I referred is a good starting point for discussion. I am not aware of any laws on the Barbados statue books prohibiting/condemning homosexuality per se. There are laws prohibiting specific acts and laws or public policies which do not accommodate certain arrangements such as marriage between two people of the same gender, joint adoption by unmarried couples etc. So what can the “homosexual debate” be really about? I suggest that there are two debates.

    One that is among religious persons and the other among those concerned with public policy and the laws of the land. The former cannot be prosecuted on rules of logic, evidence etc. Your lengthy post provides the reasons for this. The other (and ultimately more important) debate is the one that is less discussed and then (it seems to me) proceeds on the assumption that its outcome is dependent on the determination of the first debate.

    So ignoring religion inspired interpretation, why should the law be amended to

    (a) recognise marriage between persons of the same gender.

    (b) decriminalise consensual anal sexual intercourse?

    and on the public policy side:

    Should consensual sexual activity among prisoners be condoned?

    Should unmarried couples, single men, or same sex couples be allowed to adopt children?

    Given that in Barbados, persons of suspected homosexual identity are well tolerated, work freely, own property, have been elected to national office, are promoted to senior if not chief executive positions and are not subject to official or institutionalized scrutiny of their private lives greater than that of suspected heterosexuals, and enjoy protection under of the law in all matters other than marriage and presumed sexual activity, I can think of no other questions about this otherwise really minor debate.

  12. michael Avatar
    michael

    @ lux
    Now because humans were so much physically weaker than other animals it became essential that they live in groups. People who went off on their own were more likely to be killed. This means that people would have had to develop ways to live harmoniously in a group. Even if you believe this group included Caine and Abel and whatnot. Obviously Caine was scorned from the group when he killed his brother. Even though we can’t know how people thousands of years ago felt about that, we know that this would have severely drained group resources. Anything that drains group resources more than benefits it is outcast from groups in nature, so it is assumed that this happened in early populations….This was taken from a part of your blog Do you think that homosexuals would have been beneficial to those early groups of people?I would think not ,women had to have lots of children just to ensure that some reached maturity (adult hood)girls were having children as early as 13 ,we only heard of this homosexual thing when societies became large enough to have spare food and society was structured in such a way that it allowed perverts to come together to act out their deviant desires.But let me say this if this is what they want, i have no problem with them keeping it to themselves ,but their norms should not be forced on the wider society ,I just worry for the young children in this society who may be forced into this deprave behavior because of their financial saturation because I know that the perverts from north America and Europe will be down there in a hart beat to turn Barbados in to the next Thailand .girlboys will be in every hotel foya to make a dollar I wonder if this is the kind of foreign exchange we need

  13. Zoe Avatar
    Zoe

    @Praetorious, Trust that you are catching up on some much needed rest, after your in-coherent attempt at refuting the substance of my posts.

    BTW, I am a man, fully 100% heterosexual, as God created me!

    Truth by definition is absolute, regardless of who denies it. Man does not create truth, we discover truth. Almighty God, our Creator IS the Eternal, Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresnt, Immutable, Infallible source of all truth.

    Correspondence is a two-placed relation between a proposition, and the state of affairs that is its intentional object.

    Thus, Truth is grounded in intentionality.

    God, in His divinely inspired Word to us, declared many propositional ‘Truths’ which have intentionality, oftness, aboutness, directedness towards an objective telos, to those who heeded His Word, proved Him to be absolutely Just and Righteous in all of His promises. To those who scoffed at, and mocked Him, well, history is replete with their folly, and the price they paid in not listening.

    Like so many, you scoff and mock at the valid historicity of the Biblical documents. This is just plain or (wilfull) ignorance of the facts and evidence pertaining thereto.

    This subject matter has already being posted elsewhere on BU, should you have the time, and interest to have a read, may be, you’ll learn a thing or two!

    I’ll just cite one of the numerous comments from a wide array of very bright scholars, who have taken the extended time, to carefully examine the biblical documents, and their unique position in relation to other such writing of similar antiquity.

    History.

    “From I Samuel through II Chronicles one finds the history of Israel, covering about five centuries. ‘The Cambridge Ancient History, (Vol. I, p.222) say: ‘the Israelites certainly manifest a genuis for historical construction, and the Old Testament embodies the oldest history writing extent.”

    The distinguished archaeologist, Professor Albright, begins his classic essay, ‘The Bible Period.’:

    “Hebrew national tradition excels all others in its clear picture of tribal and family origins. In Egypt and Babylonia, in Assyria and Phoenicia, in Greece and Rome, we look in vain for anything comparable. There is nothing like it in the tradition of Germanic peoples. Neither India nor China can produce anything similar, since their earliest historical memories are literary deposits of distorted dynastic tradition, with no trace of the herdsman or peasant behind the demigod or king with whom their records begin. Neither in the oldest Indic historical writings (the Puranas) nor in the earliest Greek historians is there a hint of the fact that both Indo-Aryans and Hellenes were once nomads who immigrated into their later abodes from the north. The Assyrians, to be sure, remembered vaguely that their earliest rulers, whose names they recalled without any details about their dead, were tent dwellers, but when they came had long been forgotten.” 27/3.

    “The table of Nations” in Genesis 10 is an astonishingly accurate historical account. According to Albright:

    “It stands absolutely alone in ancient literature without a remote parallel even among the Greeks….’The Table of Nations’ remains an astonishingly accurate document…(It) shows such remarkable ‘modern’ understanding of the ethnic and linguistic situation in the modern world, in spite of all its complexity, that scholars never fail to be impressed with the author’s knowledge of the subject.” 7/70ff.

    John Warwick Montgomery, correctly asserts: ‘To be skeptical of the resultant text of the New Testament books is to allow all of classical antiquity to slip into obscurity, for NO other document of the ancient period are as WELL attested bibliographically as the New Testament.” 64/29.

    The fact that ‘The Bible is Trustworthy’ is based on the same bibliographical examination of ALL other documents of antiquity, to validate their trustworthyness.

    I. The Bibliographical Test.

    2. The Internal Evidence Test.

    3. The external Evidence test, and,

    4. Its Confirmation by Archaeology.

    ‘EVIDENCE That Demands a Verdict, Historical Evidences For The Christian Faith, Volume I, By Josh McDowell.

    Praetorious, I’ll critique your last, tiresome post later on.

    Always remember that two competing ‘Truth-claims’ cannot be both right at the same time and place. The Law of Non-Contradiction in logic.

    “To say of what IS, that it IS, or, to say of what IS NOT, that it IS NOT, is true.”
    Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1077b 26.

  14. Pat Avatar
    Pat

    @Praetorius

    That was a very good response to the Zoe. You should have seen by now, as most of us have, that the Zoe thinks he IS GOD.

  15. Praetorious Avatar
    Praetorious

    @Anonymous,
    I really like your posts.

    “Praetorius

    You agreed that that the Bible condemns sexual activities between males. I am at a loss as to why you need details on specific acts which according to you does not define homosexuality anyway, re: your assertion “homosexuality is an identity, not an action”.”

    I don’t need details on the acts. I firmly accept the bible condemns sexual activities among males, and in this verse doesn’t condemn homosexuality.
    Here’s an example:
    I put it to some acquaintances this way,
    “We’re all straight here, but in a situation (prison, say) Would you give or take, or colloquially, bull or be bulled. Without fail, everyone said they would have to give, not take. I suppose this maintains their sexual identity as hetero, even though they would have performed a sexual act on a nother male.

    “Why do you attempt to rebut a religious argument through logic and evidence when the main if not sole basis of the religious position is one of faith? For a busy person you do like to waste time.”

    Well, the first thing is I did promise Zoe a reply, I’m in the habit of keeping promises. Perhaps pride factors in a bit as well, Zoe’s voluminous prolific posts left me feeling a bit underrepresented.
    And most importantly, I know of no other way to evaluate claims, evidence and arguments other than reason and logic. Faith, like emotion makes us act, but to me at least, it is reason and thinking that determines what i do with that passion to act.
    Do you know of another way to evaluate claims and such?

    ‘However, your assertion to which I referred is a good starting point for discussion. I am not aware of any laws on the Barbados statue books prohibiting/condemning homosexuality per se. There are laws prohibiting specific acts and laws or public policies which do not accommodate certain arrangements such as marriage between two people of the same gender, joint adoption by unmarried couples etc. ”

    Yes I agree. Barbados does have archaic sodomy/buggery laws, a hangover from colonial law. Interestingly enough, Britain has abolished those laws and we have not.
    Might I suggest reading about Alan Turing?

    “So what can the “homosexual debate” be really about? I suggest that there are two debates.
    One that is among religious persons and the other among those concerned with public policy and the laws of the land. The former cannot be prosecuted on rules of logic, evidence etc. Your lengthy post provides the reasons for this. The other (and ultimately more important) debate is the one that is less discussed and then (it seems to me) proceeds on the assumption that its outcome is dependent on the determination of the first debate.”

    Yes, quite right. Actually, what is lacking, with this article atleast, is clear dileneation of what this debate is, what is the agenda. However, I would say that there are 2 lines followed, obviously for and against whatever it is.
    On the against, we mostly find the religious arguments, moreso than any other….

    “So ignoring religion inspired interpretation, why should the law be amended to

    (a) recognise marriage between persons of the same gender.

    (b) decriminalise consensual anal sexual intercourse?

    and on the public policy side:

    Should consensual sexual activity among prisoners be condoned?

    Should unmarried couples, single men, or same sex couples be allowed to adopt children?

    Given that in Barbados, persons of suspected homosexual identity are well tolerated, work freely, own property, have been elected to national office, are promoted to senior if not chief executive positions and are not subject to official or institutionalized scrutiny of their private lives greater than that of suspected heterosexuals, and enjoy protection under of the law in all matters other than marriage and presumed sexual activity, I can think of no other questions about this otherwise really minor debate.”

    Finally I applaud you Anonymous, for raisng actual issues concerning homosexuality. I will post some of my thoughts on these questions a bit later.
    I am still quite exhausted….

    @Pat
    Thank-you, I feel I could have done much better though.
    Well, I always found it interesting that people are always telling you this that or the other about what god wants and what god means. Other than the fact that these things usually coincide with that person’s own desires opinions and ideas, why doesn’t god speak of itself and make itself absolutely clear on its wants and desires?

    More later…
    Best Regards,
    Praetorious

  16. Zoe Avatar
    Zoe

    @Praetorious, Your lists of alleged fallacies, are being used to create a smoke’ screen’ for the express purpose of imposing your own assumptions by default. Specifically, you are ducking the issue of needing to assess ‘Worldviews’ on comparative difficulties across factual adequacy, logical coherence and explanatory power.

    In effect, Praetorious, much of what you are doing is a ‘bluff’ and a distraction, to side track the thread into polarization!

    In short, you are suffering from an acute bout of ‘Selective Hyperskepticism’ which I will show is in fact the case very soon.

    Truth is the ultimate certitude. Even if the whole world goes insane, reality remains synonymous with truth, and truth IS unyielding. One can choose to ignore it, scorn it, curse and scoff at it, but to no avail; in the end ‘Truth’ impassively stands its ground in the face of the most overpowering emotional, verbal, and intellectual onslaughts.

    Further, truth can be especially brutal to those who insist on worshippping at the Altar of Theory. This is because truth has a way of frustrating theory, and, much like a mongose circling a snake, ultimately wearing it down and devouring it.

    More to the point, truth, confirmed by reality, is the bedrock of the Judeo/Christian Worldview, with literally thousands of years of evidence logically supporting its ‘Truth-Claims.’

    Reason IS necessary for Revelation to be Coherent.

    This is precisely why, as I alluded to earlier, that:

    The structure of ‘Justification’ in defending any propositional ‘Truth-Claim’ IS *coherence* coherence IS our sole criteria for truth.

    Therefore, assessing ‘Worldviews’ bears out the utterly fundamental grounding of Logic for thinking critically about ‘truth’ and worldviews. Because, the fundamental laws of logic point us toward truth.

    The three fundamental princples in the laws of logic, are themselves ‘absolute’ truths, and are universal, regardless of culture, race, creed or ethnicity.

    1) The Law of Identity
    2) The Law of Non-Contradiction
    3) The Law of Excluded Middle.

    Without these ‘Laws of Logic’ no rational thought would be possible. To reject these basic laws of logic, one would have to utilize these very laws to reject them. As G.K. Chesterton said:

    “The man who begins to think without proper first principles goes mad; he begins to think st the wrong end.”

    The Historic Judeo/Christian World view.

    This world view essentially contains claims about reality, which are either ‘True’ or ‘False.’

    Therefore, any world view, must be subjected to, and must sustain (3) test in order to be considered valid.

    1) Logical Consistency
    2) Empirical Adequacy
    3) Experiential Relevancy

    The only religious world view, that meet and sustain all three of these, is Historic, Orthodox Christianity.

    Secondly, and intricately connected to the above criteria for validity, every system must also demonstrate an deal with the following questions:

    1) Origin
    2)Meaning
    3) Morality
    4) Destiny.

    Again, the theistic Christian worldview, is the only one that convincingly demonstrate and sustain to the above questions, unparalleled with any other religious world view inference to best explanation in light of historical evidence.

    You say, “And most importantly I know of no other way to evaluate claims, evidence and arguments other than by ‘reason’ and ‘logic’. Faith, like emotion makes us act, but to me at least, it is *reason* and *thinking* (critically) that makes what I do with that passion to all.” emphasis added.

    “Do you know of another way to evalute claims and such?

    No, absolutely, not, because logical absolutes are the building blocks of discussion and analysis. When seeking to establish ‘Truth’ all our thinking must include the position that there are absolute truths. We cannot have a rational discussion if there are no logical absolutes, because, then our thinking would be self-contradictory.

    Critical thinking, debate, exposing faulty thinking, etc., presupposes the existence of logical absolutes.

    Without a standard of rationality, we cannot expose what is irrational. Whether or not someone recognizes this presupposition, is irrelevant to the fact that the foundation of rationality is built upon absolute truth and logical absolutes. We cannot have a rational discussion if truth is relative.

    Someone once said that there is no such thing as logical absolutes, to which the other person said, “Blue sleeps faster than Wednesday.” The illogical person then asked, “What are you saying?’ The logical thinking person, then responded, “I fly in grass coloured fishing barks.” Of course, the illogical man then said that the logical thinker was making absolutely no sense, whereupon, the critical thinker responded that he was correct. If everything is ‘relative’ then our conversation would have no meaning. The point is, that in order to have rational dialogue, we have to have a common truth, common absolutes.

    More tomorrow…!

    Praetorious, I trust that you’ll be more rested and lest exhausted in the morning! Be careful not to let truth wear you down, it is relentless, you know! (Lol!)

  17. David Avatar
    David

    This story just makes you go wow! Barbados maybe far away from the thinking of the Ugandans but there is a similarity at another level. What are we going to do? Are we ready to discuss it?

    Uganda considers death sentence for gay sex in bill before parliament

    As a gay Ugandan, Frank Mugisha has endured insults from strangers, hate messages on his phone, police harassment and being outed in a tabloid as one of the country’s "top homos". That may soon seem like the good old days.

    Life imprisonment is the minimum punishment for anyone convicted of having gay sex, under an anti-homosexuality bill currently before Uganda’s parliament. If the accused person is HIV positive or a serial offender, or a "person of authority" over the other partner, or if the "victim" is under 18, a conviction will result in the death penalty.

    Members of the public are obliged to report any homosexual activity to police with 24 hours or risk up to three years in jail – a scenario that human rights campaigners say will result in a witchhunt.Ugandans breaking the new law abroad will be subject to extradition requests.

    "The bill is haunting us," said Mugisha, 25, chairman of Sexual Minorities Uganda, a coalition of local lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex groups that will all be banned under the law. "If this passes we will have to leave the country."

    Human rights groups within and outside Uganda have condemned the proposed legislation, which is designed to strengthen colonial-era laws that already criminalise gay sex. The issue threatened to overshadow the Commonwealth heads of government meeting that ended in Trinidad and Tobagotoday, with the UK and Canada both expressing strong concerns. Ahead of the meeting Stephen Lewis, a former UN envoy on Aids in Africa, said the law "makes a mockery of Commonwealth principles" and has "a taste of fascism" about it.

    But within Uganda deeply-rooted homophobia, aided by a US-linked evangelical campaign alleging that gay men are trying to "recruit" schoolchildren, and that homosexuality is a habit that can be "cured", has ensured widespread public support for the bill.

    President Yoweri Museveni appeared to add his backing earlier this month, warning youths in Kampala that he had heard that "European homosexuals are recruiting in Africa", and saying gay relationships were against God’s will.

    "We used to say Mr and Mrs, but now it is Mr and Mr. What is that now?" he said. In a interview with the Guardian, James Nsaba Buturo, the minister of state for ethics and integrity, said the government was determined to pass the legislation, ideally before the end of 2009, even if meant withdrawing from international treaties and conventions such as the UN’s Universal Declaration on Human Rights, and foregoing donor funding.

    "We are talking about anal sex. Not even animals do that," Butoro said, adding that he was personally caring for six "former homosexuals" who had been traumatised by the experience. "We believe there are limits to human rights."

    Homosexuality has always been a taboo subject in Uganda, and is considered by many to be an affront both to local culture and religion, which plays a strong role in family life. This negative stigma and the real threat of job loss means that no public personality has ever "come out".

    Even local HIV campaigns – which have been heavily influenced by the evangelical church with a bias towards abstinence over condom use – have deliberately avoided targeting gay men for both prevention and access to treatment.

    "This means many gay men here think Aids is a non-issue, which is so dangerous," said Mugisha, who together with a few colleagues, has risked arrest by agitating in recent years for a change in the HIV policy.

    At the same time, some influential religious leaders have warned about the dangers of accepting liberal western attitudes towards homosexuality.

    Both opponents and supporters agree that the impetus for the bill came in March during a seminar in Kampala to "expose the truth behind homosexuality and the homosexual agenda".

    The main speakers were three US evangelists: Scott Lively, Don Schmierer and Caleb Lee Brundidge. Lively is a noted anti-gay activist and president of Defend the Family International, a conservative Christian association, while Schmierer is an author who works with "homosexual recovery groups". Brundidge is a "sexual reorientation coach" at the International Healing Foundation.

    The seminar was organised by Stephen Langa, a Ugandan electrician turned pastor who runs the Family Life Network in Kampala and has been spreading the message that gays are targeting schoolchildren for "conversion". "They give money to children to recruit schoolmates – once you have two children, the whole school is gone," he said in an interview. Asked if there had been any court case to prove this was happening, he replied: "No, that’s why this law is needed."

    After the conference Langa arranged for a petition signed by thousands of concerned parents to be delivered to parliament in April. Within a few months the bill had been drawn up.

    Christopher Senyonjo, a retired Anglican bishop, said the bill would push Uganda towards being a police state. "This law is being influenced by some evangelicals abroad," he said. "There’s a lack of understanding about homosexuality – it’s not recruitment, it’s orientation."

    But among religious leaders of all faiths his is a rare voice. Langa, the pastor, said the only thing lacking in the legislation was a clause for "rehabilitation" of homosexuals, whom he "loves" and wants to help. Gay rights had the potential to destroy civilisation, as the west could soon find out, he said.

    "As one parent told me: ‘We would rather live in grass huts with our morality than in skyscrapers among homosexuals’."

  18. Praetorious Avatar
    Praetorious

    @Zoe

    I just read your post, and you’re still wrong.
    Amazingly, you write entire paragraphs of nothing.

    Oh yes, another fallacy i was hesitant to put is called blinding with science (although you offer no science, but that is characteristic of the fallacy), or in your case, blinding with the bible. Your then posts become increasingly and increasingly more complex. What i mean by this is your choice of words, choice of sentence construction, is indeed adding layers of abstraction to what you’re saying. You find this tactic in much of the post-modernist junk papers out there. Using fancy constructions to give something the appearance of greatness of some sort, when there really is none. By making something sound so grand, you mask that it has no substance. Some of us can actually see through this you know.
    You’ve been posting nothing

    “@Praetorious, Your lists of alleged fallacies, are being used to create a smoke’ screen’ for the express purpose of imposing your own assumptions by default. ”

    Really, and here i thought i was pointing out the flaws in your posts. I don’t recall making assumptions about you or what you’re saying and constructing lofty arguments to counter those assumptions…

    “Specifically, you are ducking the issue of needing to assess ‘Worldviews’ on comparative difficulties across factual adequacy, logical coherence and explanatory power.”

    Specifically, you are ducking the topic of homosexuality…

    “In effect, Praetorious, much of what you are doing is a ‘bluff’ and a distraction, to side track the thread into polarization!”

    Really, how am i doing this. I have not used charged arguments of a divisive nature, such as the religious one you put forth. I have not made an argument which seeks to put things in plain black and white so as to polarise the responses. I have not asked anyone for help or to respond in a particular way.

    “In short, you are suffering from an acute bout of ‘Selective Hyperskepticism’ which I will show is in fact the case very soon.”

    Again, a bunch of nothing. You haven’t answered anything.
    Your post is just this long winded post-modernist language/grammar/syntax filled bag.

    You have been arguing asides in this and previous posts, tackling marriage in the bible, logic, biblical accuracy and all sorts of things (related to defending the bible and such) yet have failed to deal directly with homosexuality.

    As an aside:
    Hey, if anyone wants to see text similar to Zoe’s, go to http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/
    It generates a wonderful postmodernist essay every time you log on.

    Sigh.
    Anonymous, I said I would post my answers to the questions you raised. I still intend to, just hang in there.

  19. Lux Avatar
    Lux

    @michael
    You are right in that homosexuality would not have been beneficial, reproductively to early civilizations. People who strictly practiced homosexuality would bear no children, therefore would contribute neither their genes nor their behaviours to the next generation. Following the concept of natural selection, heterosexual behaviour would be selected for, because this would contribute offspring to the gene pool of the next generation.

    However, we have little understanding of the intimate details of social life of those early civilizations, and all we can do is speculate from archaeological evidence. The fact is that even if they did have heterosexual behaviour (which obviously they must have or we wouldn’t be here) we can’t say that the same individuals committed homosexual acts as well. One of our genetically close relatives, the Bonobo, uses sex to relieve social tensions, whether it be hetero or homo. As far as I know it hasn’t been explicitly ruled out. One thing that is for certain is that people who were strictly homosexual would have produced no further lineages, and have not contributed genes to the human population, as any other human who has not had children.

    I think that the words of religious texts teach people how to have thriving populations. It would be good for Moses or Jesus to advise their followers to be heterosexual, as this would give them an advantage to contributing more to the human gene pool, who would most likely become followers, and follow the other rules to live in Their designed society, which was meant to be peaceful, I believe.

    I don’t think that homosexuality will become a norm anytime soon, so you shouldn’t worry that releasing homophobic hatred would cause that. In Toronto the gay rights movement has overstepped many boundaries, and people frown upon homophobic behaviour, but still the vast majority of the population is heterosexual. The vast majority of the media is driven towards promotion of the “guy-gets-girl” storyline. If you think about it, most people will have been raised by a heterosexual couple, therefore this is the family concept of most people, and much fewer gay people have children. Thus the concept of gay parenting is definitely far off from being a norm right now. And on this topic, the fact that we have developed so far as to allow homosexuals to be able to have children shows that it is not necessary to be heterosexual to prevent population decline. (Which if you look at the population bottleneck since the 1970’s actually does need to happen before we kill the planet but that’s another conversation).

    I don’t believe that financial saturation causes homosexual behaviour. You allude to the fact that North America and Europe have more homosexual people. However this data may be more correlational. The fact that they are more affluent means that people have more resources to focus on civil rights activism and such, and these countries have had their share of this, so that perhaps more people are unashamed to be called gay. I’m sure that people in prison don’t commit homosexual acts because they are rich. Also homosexuality can be found in many tribal cultures, in Africa as well, who we wouldn’t call affluent financially. (BTW that comment way above by Negroman was the most disgusting, bigoted statement I have ever heard).

    I worry for the young children in society that never learn how to love each other for who they really are. I hope that our young blossoming heterosexual relationships are based on love, trust, honesty, instead of looks, status, or being heavily based on the ability to provide. I hope that while Barbadians are teaching young men not to be with men, we also teach them how to be good to their woman, how to love a woman, and be a father. And the other way around as well. There is a great deal of ‘depraved’ behaviour all around.

    It is interesting that you associate homosexuality so strongly to perversion that you think letting one exist will allow another common idea of perversion, prostitution, get in there. Whether there is any human of any gender selling sexual services in Barbadian hotels is another matter. I’m personally more concerned with the case of two men, or two women, who truly find each other amazing, and deeply love each other for who they are. Surely love is a beautiful thing? Even if they are strictly chaste, people will assume things, and the couple will feel the bite of people talking behind their backs and crossing their arms. They will hear the comments on the radio about how disgusting and nasty they are. They could feel like people won’t want their children around them. They might not even feel comfortable giving a peck on the cheek when cutting a birthday cake at a party. I’m just imagining here really, it would probably be better if someone in a homosexual relationship shared their story.

    michael, I’m glad that you have no problem with people “keeping it to themselves”. I’d prefer if most people kept mention of their sexual activity to themselves, personally, except close friends. But the gay rights movement isn’t seeking to push homosexuality on everyone. It wants people who are homosexual to be able to feel comfortable in their own skin in the society. Could you imagine how the words we use frequently must hurt? When people may simply be trying to be honest with themselves.

    Sorry if I’m arguing to emotion at the latter part, but to me those points are more in that sort of realm.

    @Anonymous ( the most recent one)
    Thanks for someone actually getting back to the topic at hand and clarifying some issues.
    (b) why should anything between consensual partners of a mature enough age be wrong? That’s how they choose to express their love to each other. Should you also tell them, oh you can only write love poetry as sonnets? Perhaps false analogy, but it seems incredulous, and perhaps a bit 1984 to me for a government to restrict what u can agree to do or not in a bedroom. How are you going to find out about anal intercourse anyway? Obviously the people performing it like it, and are not going to want to get locked up, so are not going to tell. Why would you ever tell unless it was not consensual, and you wanted to press charges?

    a) marriage is a topic about how society will agree to change a definition. If a civil union grants all rights as a marriage, and everything is the same except there are 2 of the same sex, then what’s the difference, except a word? However in Barbados I don’t think you get many rights of a union…wh

    Would any heterosexual consensual activity among prisoners be condoned ( if it is possible)? Depends how far you want to punish people.

    If there are so many children out there who need to be taken care of, should we not be grateful for any souls who would devote their time, love, resources, to a child? We should be most concerned with the child. Certainly every homosexual man does not desire to rape young boys, if that’s one of the concerns. Adoption agencies always do thorough background checks. Heterosexual couples can be just as dangerous, or more.

    You are right, “persons of suspected homosexual identity are well tolerated”.
    We aren’t that bad in Barbados compared to other countries. But there is still room for improvement in legal matters. For example, even though they may be tolerated in the workplace, there is no law to prohibit discrimination should anyone harass them about their sexual orientation.

    My main concern is how homosexual people are viewed by the society. I was reading Dennis Jones’s article earlier
    http://livinginbarbados.blogspot.com/2007/12/homosexuality-topic-of-fear.html ( I hope you don’t mind me linking it, Dennis). I might comment that even the phrase “persons of suspected homosexual identity…” can give the idea that people cannot be openly homosexual for fear of the reaction of society.

    I hope people change their homophobic, prejudiced attitudes in Barbados. It’s not going to let depraved individuals over-run the country. Instead it could allow individuals live fully at peace with themselves within the society.

  20. Lux Avatar
    Lux

    Arg, I should fully read over before i hit submit. 2 corrections:

    we can’t say that the same individuals 1.committed homosexual acts as well.

    should be

    we can’t say that the same individuals didn’t commit homosexual acts as well

    2. (don’t know what happened here)
    However in Barbados I don’t think you get many rights of a union…wh

    should be

    However in Barbados I don’t think you get many rights of a union…which isn’t fair for people who have been living with each other, and have cared about each other for so many years.

    Sorry about that, how embarrassing.

  21. Dictionary Avatar
    Dictionary

    Onlookers:

    This thread is interesting [though sadly telling], and inadvertently revealing on the process, rhetoric and results of radical, secular humanist secularisation and associated incoherent relativisation of both knowledge and values.

    1] Original post:

    It seems the issue is homosexuality in light of the global recent push by advocates of the homosexualist agenda and hesitancy of Bajan political leadership to take specific stances that would be viewed as hostile to the now institutionally dominant homosexualisation of our civilisation, as a part of the process of benumbing us to amorality and the imposition of the demand that we not only tolerate but officially approve of, protect and even promote this pattern of behaviour [think about Heather has two mommies, and Daddy’s roommate, which were TEXTBOOKS for primary aged kids in NY in recent years . . .], in the name of rights and un-changeable personal identity and orientation that is widely asserted or assumed to be genetically induced and unalterable and almost inevitable in expression.

    The contrast of J’ca where popular sentiment is forcing political leaders to take a relatively tough line — even in the teeth of the known costs of crossing the global homosexualist lobby, and while batting on the sticky wicket of a society in crisis in which there is significant vigilantism that targets homosexuals just as it targets goat thieves and others believed by mobs to be malefactors deserving of what is felt to be “rough justice” — is of course instructive. (Of course, vigilantism is wrong, period. And the real problem here is vigilantism, not specific prone-ness to violence against homosexuals; nor is there any officially backed pogrom. )

    So, the question arises: is there any serious, principled opposition to homosexuality and the associated current international policy push to homosexualise that foundational community institution, marriage, or is it only vigilantes and bigots who object to such plain and obvious rights and needed reforms?

    [In short, Praetorious (given your 12 pp essay of yesterday), is this a case of sophisticated setting up and knocking over a convenient strawman, complete with implicit dehumanisation and dismissal of objectors to an agenda that cannot otherwise stand on its own merits on comparative difficulties and assessment of the balance of social costs and benefits?]

    2] Uganda

    Similarly, the ill-advised (and in key respects indefensible) private members bill in Uganda — which, strictly speaking, targets behaviour not identity (and which reserves the death penalty for “aggravated” behaviour, e.g. drugging someone to commit homosexual acts or having such acts while . . . apparently knowingly . . . being infected with HIV, or imposing on one under one’s power, or inducing a minor into the act) — serves as a convenient point of reference.

    What I found most interesting about the Guardian report — similar to what is emerging on the climate emails-gate scandal — is the all too predictably slanted way that it is being reported.

    For instance, while the above article speaks in threatening tones of US-based evangelical groups who are saying that homosexuals are targetting schoolchildren — when, from the days of Plato’s titters on “love” for boys in his The Republic, that is a well-known pattern [one that parallels the tendency of unscrupulous men to prey upon young school-age girls . . . wasn’t there a porno video scandal on this a few years back?] — it is significant that we find nowhere the declaration of Exodus International and other leading Evangelical groups in the US on the matter.

    Exodus International, perhaps the leading Evangelically oriented movement of and ministry to ex- and recovering homosexuals, is on record in a Tuesday, 24 November 2009 Charisma magazine News article as follows:

    A prominent ex-gay ministry is speaking out against a proposed law in Uganda that could penalize anyone involved in same-sex sexual relationships and anyone knowledgeable of those affairs.

    Exodus International leaders said the Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009, introduced into the Ugandan Parliament on Oct. 14 to affirm traditional family values, discriminates against people with same-sex attraction.

    “Overall the bill’s intent is to silence, intimidate and oppress people who have same sex attraction,” said Randy Thomas, executive vice president of Exodus International, a ministry geared toward helping homosexuals find freedom from same-sex attraction. “It is very hostile toward people with same-sex attraction.”

    The bill would penalize anyone caught in a homosexual relationship with a maximum penalty of life in prison or in some cases the death penalty. The bill also penalizes anyone who is aware of someone involved in homosexual behavior and does not report the person to authorities within 24 hours.

    According to the current wording of the bill pastors, doctors or family members could be fined or imprisoned for up to three years for not reporting anyone known to engage in homosexual conduct.

    Exodus asserts that the bill would further alienate people with same-sex attraction from seeking healing and discourage those who may want to help them find freedom.

    Moody Bible Institute and the Clinical Advisory Board of the American Association of Christian Counselors joined Exodus in sending a letter to Ugandan President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni decrying the proposed law.

    “While we do not believe that homosexual behavior is what God intended for individuals, we believe that deprivation of life and liberty is not an appropriate or helpful response to this issue,” the letter stated.

    “Furthermore, the Christian church must be a safe, compassionate place for gay-identified people as well as those who are confused about and conflicted by their sexuality,” it continued. “If homosexual behavior and knowledge of such behavior is criminalized and prosecuted, as proposed in this bill, church and ministry leaders will be unable to assist hurting men, women and youth who might otherwise seek help in addressing this personal issue.” . . . .

    Thomas of Exodus . . . said the church rather than the government should take the lead in protecting family values.

    “I think that the government needs to step back and not oppress adults who are struggling with same-sex attraction and allow the church to step forward and say, ‘We have a redemptive approach to this issue,’” Thomas told Charisma. “We don’t condemn it; we don’t condone it, but we have a redemptive approach.”

    I observe that the Guardian article is datelined Sunday 29 November 2009; i.e . the journalists and editors failed to do due diligence to fairness to those adversely implicated by an article.

    As a direct result, the article ends up erecting and igniting an ad hominem laced strawman.

    3] Strawman games vs comparative difficulties and inference to best explanation

    Nowadays, too often, there is a pattern in rhetoric whereby a caricatured and artificially weakened version of a position on an issue is used to demonise and discredit a targetted side and its proponents, who are often inappropriately portrayed as idiots or as particularly evil. (I note that since we are all finite fallible and all too often willfully in the wrong, we all struggle to overcome evil, at our best — the point of the classic parable on planks and sawdust in eyes.)

    This must stop, and instead we need to reckon seriously with the challenges to know, to ground knowledge, and to contrast that which is knowable from that which is provable beyond all doubt or possibility of error. And, we must understand that the criteria of warrant that we apply must be consistent, or we fall into the self- referentially incoherent delusions of selective hyperskepticism.

    Very few cases of knowledge can be warranted to certainty [one of these is that error exists; which is undeniably true on pain of self contradiction], and in fact logical argument is no better than its assumed or asserted premises.

    So, we need to recongise that we face inferences to best and inevitably provisional explanation and comparative difficulties of alternative views, as the DOMINANT issue in serious claims to have obtained well-warranted, credibly true beliefs; i.e. knowledge. I have long recommended the approach here. (And yes, this is a part of a course reader from a compulsory course in an Evangelical institution of higher education in the Caribbean. We should not make the mistake of thinking that half-remembered Sunday school lessons are representative of the full depth of Christian thought on such matters.)

    4] A key test case on “circularity”:

    Let us now observe P’s opening moves in his article on Zoe’s alleged fallacies:

    The first fallacy committed is Circular logic. Let me illustrate:

    “ the authenticity of the Bible, as Almighty God’s divinely inspired Word, will be terribly tarnished by your contempt for its self-authenticating Word.”
    Omitting the assumptions you make about me, let me put your posts in precis:
    We know that the bible is true because god says so, we know that god says so, and indeed exists, because it is written in the bible.
    and
    We know about god from the bible. We know we can trust the bible because it is the inspired word of god.
    Any claim based on circular logic, regardless of the truth of its premises is still a logical fallacy, and is thus worthless. That’s why I have little regard for the bible, and indeed why I wish to stay clear of religious arguments. Indeed, your entire religious arguments are destroyed by this one fallacy

    a –> Immediately, we need to ask: why does Zoe (or other evangelicals) speak of a “self-authenticating Word”?

    b –> For, it seems P has simply assumed as an implied premise that such is a patently absurd impossibility and/or obvious falsehood. But is that the case? [On pain of, yes: a circular argument by P.]

    c –> but in fact if say we look at Clark Pinnock’s remarks in :

    Why, in the last analysis, do Christian people believe the Bible is God’s Word? Not because they have studied up on Christian evidences and apologetics, however useful these may prove to some. Christians believe the Bible because it has been able to do for them exactly as Paul promised it would [i.e. in 2 Tim 3:13 – 17]: introduce them to a saving and transforming knowledge of Christ. Reasons for faith and answers to perplexing difficulties in the text, therefore, are supportive but not constitutive of faith in God and his Word. Faith rests ultimately, not on in human wisdom, but in a demonstration of the Spirit and power.

    d –> In short just as a conversation with your mother is self-authenticating, those who have a live relationship with God in the face of Jesus — millions currently and across the ages (so it is not too hard to find out about this if you are serious on truth and fairness . . . ) — find the text of the Bible especially the promises in and around the gospel — cf. e.g. Isaiah 53 — to be a means of encounter with a living, self-authenticating person who transforms lives for the good.

    e –> In short, such trust in God and his word as authenticated personally by life-transforming relationship, is not blind and ill-instructed intellectually indefensible faith, but a conforming to the reality that one experiences.

    f –> And that, plainly, is not the fallacy of assuming what one should prove. (thus also, we see that P has fallen into the same intellectual error he would accuse Zoe of. And that is the typical sign of selective hyperskepticism in action. Not least, among modernist theologians and those who have fallen victim to their unfortunately selectively hyperskeptical views of the scriptures.)

    g –> For those who need supporting arguments, from Ac 17 and 1 Cor 15 etc, the offer of warrant presented to the world by the Cristian faith is the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth with 500 witnesses, leading to an unstoppable spiritual tsunami of blessing from the power of the cross. (You might want to start here.)

    h –> In short, P’s chain of reasoning breaks at the very first link. (And at several following points, he proves himself out of date, e.g.t he Frazer golden Bough thesis that the Nt copies pagan legends and religious practices has long since passed its sell-by date. those interested in dealing with the current wave of attacks on the gospel in the wake of Dan brown and the Jesus Seminar etc,could begin from Lee Strobel’s recent interview book, The Case for the Real Jesus. (remember, Strobel is presenting the findings of a cluster of experts, by interview.)]

    ____________

    G’day

    Dictionary.

    PS: Technician, your attempted discrediting by citing a hit piece — done while I was away visiting ailing parents in a remote location — has been answered here. You need to seriously consider what Mr Boyne was trying to support — inter alia dancehall vulgarity in the name of “freedom” — and the rhetorically improper tactics of immoral equivalency to terrorists he resorted to. I will not go into details on the violations of my person and privacy, and the legal implications of propagating a slander. I just point you to my critique published in the gleaner that the Gleaner had to publish as a brief corrective on, on Oct 29 2006 given just how far overboard Mr Boyne had gone.

    PPS: On the homosexualist agenda. Zoe is essentially right in his post on the steps of homosexualisation, as Hunter and Marsden in the 1980s wrote a strategic action plan for the homosexualists in their After the Ball: (1) desensitise the culture to homosexualisation (often by appealing to “rights”), (2) jam the messages those who object (often by strawmanising and demonisising them), (3) convert people to the approval of in-your-face homosexuality. the play-out of this strategy is evident all around us.

  22. kiki Avatar
    kiki

    if man a god,
    woman are satan
    woman are woman
    and man are man

  23. Dictionary Avatar
    Dictionary

    P

    I have submitted a remark to the BU, in part on your article of yesterday.

    I assume it awaits moderation.

    Meanwhile here is the part on your first step in argument against Zoe:

    +++++++++

    4] A key test case on “circularity”:

    Let us now observe P’s opening moves in his article on Zoe’s alleged fallacies:

    The first fallacy committed is Circular logic. Let me illustrate:

    “ the authenticity of the Bible, as Almighty God’s divinely inspired Word, will be terribly tarnished by your contempt for its self-authenticating Word.”
    Omitting the assumptions you make about me, let me put your posts in precis:
    We know that the bible is true because god says so, we know that god says so, and indeed exists, because it is written in the bible.
    and
    We know about god from the bible. We know we can trust the bible because it is the inspired word of god.
    Any claim based on circular logic, regardless of the truth of its premises is still a logical fallacy, and is thus worthless. That’s why I have little regard for the bible, and indeed why I wish to stay clear of religious arguments. Indeed, your entire religious arguments are destroyed by this one fallacy

    a –> Immediately, we need to ask: why does Zoe (or other evangelicals) speak of a “self-authenticating Word”?

    b –> For, it seems P has simply assumed as an implied premise that such is a patently absurd impossibility and/or obvious falsehood. But is that the case? [On pain of, yes: a circular argument by P.]

    c –> but in fact if say we look at Clark Pinnock’s remarks in His The Scripture Principle :

    Why, in the last analysis, do Christian people believe the Bible is God’s Word? Not because they have studied up on Christian evidences and apologetics, however useful these may prove to some. Christians believe the Bible because it has been able to do for them exactly as Paul promised it would [i.e. in 2 Tim 3:13 – 17]: introduce them to a saving and transforming knowledge of Christ. Reasons for faith and answers to perplexing difficulties in the text, therefore, are supportive but not constitutive of faith in God and his Word. Faith rests ultimately, not on in human wisdom, but in a demonstration of the Spirit and power.

    d –> In short just as a conversation with your mother is self-authenticating, those who have a live relationship with God in the face of Jesus — millions currently and across the ages (so it is not too hard to find out about this if you are serious on truth and fairness . . . ) — find the text of the Bible especially the promises in and around the gospel — cf. e.g. Isaiah’>http://www.chaim.org/isaiah53.htm“>Isaiah 53 — to be a means of encounter with a living, self-authenticating person who transforms lives for the good.

    e –> In short, such trust in God and his word as authenticated personally by life-transforming relationship, is not blind and ill-instructed intellectually indefensible faith, but a conforming to the reality that one experiences.

    f –> And that, plainly, is not the fallacy of assuming what one should prove. (thus also, we see that P has fallen into the same intellectual error he would accuse Zoe of. And that is the typical sign of selective hyperskepticism in action. Not least, among modernist theologians and those who have fallen victim to their’>http://www.angelfire.com/pro/kairosfocus/resources/Intro_phil/Mod_Theol.htm“>their unfortunately selectively hyperskeptical views of the scriptures.)

    g –> For those who need supporting arguments, from Ac 17 and 1 Cor 15 etc, the offer of warrant presented to the world by the Cristian faith is the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth with 500 witnesses, leading to an unstoppable spiritual tsunami of blessing from the power of the cross. (You might want to start here’>http://www.leaderu.com/everystudent/easter/articles/yama.html“>here.)

    h –> In short, P’s chain of reasoning breaks at the very first link. (And at several following points, he proves himself out of date, e.g.t he Frazer golden Bough thesis that the Nt copies pagan legends and religious practices has long since passed its sell-by date. those interested in dealing with the current wave of attacks on the gospel in the wake of Dan brown and the Jesus Seminar etc,could begin from Lee Strobel’s recent interview book, The’>http://www.amazon.com/Case-Real-Jesus-Journalist-Investigates/dp/031024210X“>The Case for the Real Jesus. (remember, Strobel is presenting the findings of a cluster of experts, by interview.)]
    +++++++++++

    In short, I think a revision of your basic approach is in order.

    D

  24. Dictionary Avatar
    Dictionary

    PS: Something seems to have gone wrong with my links. Not sure why. Sorry.

  25. Amused Avatar
    Amused

    Anonymous // November 30, 2009 at 9:15 AM

    Excellent. Well stated. One issue that I would ask you to look at, however, is the matter of partnerhip/union/marriage for gay people. My understanding is that this arises from the necessity of protecting the surviving member of such an arrangement. It is all very well to say that they should write a Will, but that will not prevent some people from trying to overthrow such a Will. Also, some people feel that the minute they make a Will, they will die, so they don’t make a Will and then, after they are dead, their families come in and push out the person with whom they have lived and who has probably had to take care of them, sometimes for over 50 years. Also, the moment they are judged incapable, if they are judged incapable, then the family has the right to push their partner out and, indeed, the hospital or other institution can elect to report to the family, rather than the person with whom they have shared their life. That seems to me to be the reasoning behind civil union legislation in other countries. Whether it is relevant in Barbados or not, is the subject for investigation and, if merited, action. My personal view is that it is all very well to say that gay people enjoy the same rights as others – but in light of what I have said above, do they? It seems to me that what you have said is that they should be satisfied with sufferance, rather than rights. If this is the case, maybe the question should be asked, “Would you be satisfied with sufferance rather than rights?”

    @David. While very interesting, Uganda does not enjoy the tourist popularity of Barbados. We have to appeal to the European Community member countries (all of which sanction same-sex marriage/union) to Canada (which has amended its provincial marriages acts to allow marriage between same-sex parties) and to the Unites States which is now on a course to do the same. So, it is all very well to say to these, “Well only send us your heterosexuals.” But those heterosexuals probably have children or other relatives who are gay and they may take strong exception to visiting a country and spending those tourist dollars in a country that discriminates against their relatives/children.

    You see, in those countries, to be gay or not is a non-event. It causes no ripples nor, indeed, any surprise or censure and there is hate crime legislation to take care of the rest. Barbados is not on the same page there, but seeks to entice these people to come and shell out their money in our country.

    Just worth thinking about.

  26. David Avatar
    David

    @Amused

    Agree with your argument partially. Forgive us if we appear to be naive and philosophical all at the same time. Your argument suggests that right and wrong as determined by societies is based on economic considerations only. Do you agree other considerations apply? Unfortunately the reality of the situation will dictate policy but generally should this be the case?

  27. Dennis Jones (aka Living in Barbados) Avatar
    Dennis Jones (aka Living in Barbados)

    @Amused // December 1, 2009 at 5:56 AM
    “We have to appeal to the European Community member countries (all of which sanction same-sex marriage/union) to Canada (which has amended its provincial marriages acts to allow marriage between same-sex parties) and to the Unites States which is now on a course to do the same….You see, in those countries, to be gay or not is a non-event. It causes no ripples nor, indeed, any surprise or censure and there is hate crime legislation to take care of the rest. Barbados is not on the same page there,…” [It is NOT a non-event in the countries you cite, but an event that is put into a particular context. Many gay couples go through social and personal hell everyday, irrespective of what laws allow, because individuals and groups will still victimize or ostracize them. However, they do have some rights and protection.

    Part of the difference is in putting up some walls that say ‘go about your personal and private business’. That is not the same as having full national approval. It certainly gives no international approval. Another part is stopping a sort of public hyprocricy, which is often evident, when one type of sexual difference is treated as utterly ‘untouchable’ while others are passed over.

    I would have more time for the various arguments against gays if I saw the same vigour against adultery or child beating or woman beating or stealing or other transgressions from the 10 Commandments. The religious ‘cherry picking’ is really hard to deal with.]

  28. michael Avatar
    michael

    lux
    Thus the concept of gay parenting is definitely far off from being a norm right now

    The way the gay rights actives are pushing they agenda they want it to be seen as normal

    The fact that they are more affluent means that people have more resources to focus on civil rights activism and such, and these countries have had

    I think that these countries have used their affluence to indulge in things that are unnatural

    I worry for the young children in society that never learn how to love each other for who they really are. I hope that our young blossoming heterosexual relationships are based on love, trust, honesty, instead of looks, status, or being heavily based on the ability to provide. I hope that while Barbadians are teaching young men not to be with men, we also teach them how to be good to their woman, how to love a woman, and be a father. And the other way around as well. There is a great deal of ‘depraved’ behaviour all around.

    I am sure that we all would wish for this but we cant achieve it by supporting the homosexual agenda of the northern countries

    “selling sexual services in Barbadian hotels is another matter”

    Trust me i saw it happening

    I’m personally more concerned with the case of two men, or two women, who truly find each other amazing

    Yes lux I read what you have said
    But yah know some ting I in wana here it, dah is dem business

    I’d prefer if most people kept mention of their sexual activity to themselves, personally,

    You must know that we culture like a hard joke now and then so how you expect this to stop I in know

  29. Zoe Avatar
    Zoe

    @Praetorious, Nov 30, 09, @3:14 AM,

    “No, no it’s not. There are many other texts which talk about how it all began, what went wrong, and how to fix it. The Bible is just another one. The New Testament is just a copy of other stories, like those of Horus, Mithras, Dionysus, Krishna…How do you explain those stories which predate the Bible, but are essentially the same?”

    “The onus is on you to assert that your particular fairytale is the right one. What if you are wrong?”

    Praetorious, those other ‘fairytales’ i.e., Horus, Mithras, Dionysus, Krishana, are just that, nothing but, ‘Myth’ no historic, logical, legal evidence of any kind whatsoever was/is presented, just mythological nonsense.

    Whereas, the New Testament documents are the most attested from antiquity ever!

    Christianity Is a FACTual Religion.

    Christianity appeals to history, the *facts* of history, which P. Carnegie Simpson calls, ‘the most patent and accessible data.’ ‘He Jesus is a fact of history cognizable as any other.’

    Christianity is based on indisputable facts!

    Clark Pinnock defines this type of facts:

    “The facts backing the Christian claim are not a special kind of religious fact. They are *cognitive* informational facts upon which all historical, legal, and ordinary decisions are based.”

    “Faith in Christianity,” Paul Little writes, “Is based on *evidence*. It is reasonable faith. Faith in the Christian sense goes beyong reason, BUT, not against it. Faith is the assurance of the heart in the adequacy of the EVIDENCE.”

    As John Montgomery asserts, that, “the inability to distinguish Jesus’ claims for Himself from the New Testament writer’s claim for Him should cause no dismay, since (1) the situation exactly parallels that for all historical personages who have not themselves chosen to write (e.g., Alexander the Great, Augustus Caesar, Charlemagne). We would hardly claim that in these cases we can achieve no adequate historical portraits. Also, (2) the New Testament writers…record *eyewitness* testimony concerning Jesus, and can therefore be trusted to convey an accurate historical picture of Him.”

    “Without an objective criterion,” says John Montgomery, “one is at a loss to make a meaningful choice among ‘a prioris.’ The Resurrection provides a basis in historical probability, not of certainty, but probability is the sole ground on which finite human beings can make any decisions. Only deductive logic and pure mathematics provide ‘apodictic certainty’ and that do so because they stem from self-evident formal axioms (e.g., the tautology, if A then A) involving no matter of fact. The moment we enter the realm of fact, we must depend on probality.”

    The amazing collection of evidence, historical, legal, logical, circumstantial, positive, negative, etc, etc, the prepondence of which, overwhelmingly, support and confirm the historicity of the Person of Jesus Christ, both from internal sources, i.e., the Gospel accounts, and external sources, secular historians, can be denied, BUT, cannot be objectively, with any sense of intellectual honesty, refuted.

    The rejection of Christ is often not so much of the ‘mind,’ but of the ‘will’; not so much ‘I can’t’ BUT, ‘I won’t.’

    Most people reject Jesus Christ for one or more of the following reasons.

    1. Ignorance – Romans 1:18-23 (often self-imposed), Matthew 22: 29.

    2. Pride (ego) – John 5: 40-44.

    3. Moral problem(s) – John 3: 19,20.

    No, Praetorious, the ‘onus’ is on you, to refute the vast array of evidence and facts, many have tried and failed.

    “The fallacy of ‘selective hyperskepticism’ occurs when one exerts (perhaps inadvertently) a ‘double standard’ on the degree of warrant demanded for accepting matters of fact, matters which as Simon Greenleaf observed, can only be shown to be beyond reasonable doubt, i.e., to moral rather than demonstrative certainty. (This fallacy, unfortunately, is especially common in addressing matters relating to the underlying evidential basis for the Christian faith.) However, it can be relatively easily detected, and avoided. When one turns to the underlying root factors, one sees that there is a need to first address the self-referential inconsistencies in radical skepticism and associated evidentialism and narrow foundationalism. Once that is done, one may then proceed to a fairer examination of matters of fact in general and Christian evidences in particular.”

    Praetorious, are you willing to do this?

    If, as lawyers say, you come with ‘a willing mind’ to let the evidence and facts lead you, which you obviously have not done coherently up to this point, I can assure you, the ‘Light’ of the truth of the Glorious Gospel of Christ, will shine so brightly upon you, as He has done for literal multitudes across every nation, culture, every class of person, from the peasent to the scholar and intellectual, not a ‘religion’ with formalism and ritual, BUT, a Personal, Living, vibrant relationship with the Person of The Lord Jesus Christ, who alone has, and continues to transform lives across the nations of the world, from Communism in Russia, China, India, where millions are finding true purpose, peace, joy, and the *Gift* of eternal life, in, by, and through the only Saviour and Lord of mankind Jesus Christ.

    All across Africa, South America, and even the Middle East, multiplied thousands upon thousands are being liberated from the bondage of ‘religion’ to freedom in Jesus. Many miracles are documented in Africa, India, et al countries, that are an amazing reality to what the Word of God declares can happen to those who put their trust, faith in Christ.

    Facts are stubborn things, and only the stubborn refuse to accept them. (Martin Luther King, Jr).

  30. michael Avatar
    michael

    @ dennis jones
    it’s not that people like it, the gay lobby has invaded politics at every level ,pass laws to make people shut dhu mout,and so this is what you got now the world have to tow line like it or not ,don’t worry you soon will not be able to get the cloths you want you will have to ware what the gay men put in stores under the guise of fashion

  31. Zoe Avatar
    Zoe

    @Dennis Jones, Yes, adultery, fornication, and other sins, have always been addressed, and are rampant througout all nations, BUT, are any of these other ‘sinners’ as wrong as they are, seeking by a specific, well planned ‘agenda’ as clearly demonstrated by the Homosexualists activists, to transform societies into what they have openly stated IS their intention, to destroy our traditional foundation of ‘marriage’ between one man and one woman!

  32. Dennis Jones (aka Living in Barbados) Avatar
    Dennis Jones (aka Living in Barbados)

    @ michael // December 1, 2009 at 11:22 AM
    We may end up in a semantic debate. We can see each ‘normal’ as very different things. For instance, I see it as very normal for a black person to excel (coming from the Caribbean) yet live in a world where it is seen as an exception (eg living in the UK). Where we need to be careful is if the view that sees me as ‘abnormal’ puts me into a very inferior position as a result of that view: I am what I am, I would argue, and treat me with respect whatever you believe. It’s that kind of approach that has helped black people move from under the yoke of white people seeing them as ‘not fit’ to play key roles. If you do not know what that means, think of being clearly the best yet being treated as the worst.

    Your “I hope…behavoiur all around” contain many of the sentiments that a good society needs. As I mention elsewhere, heterosexual relations built on hate and fear and abuse should feel the same harsh wind of criticism as any other relationship that people deem ‘unworthy’.

    michael // December 1, 2009 at 12:33 PM “gay lobby has invaded politics at every level ,pass laws to make people shut dhu mout…” [Without wishing to be rude, this I find to be nonsense. If you believe that the ‘gay lobby’ has started to rule your life, then you have to explain who is voting this lobby in again and again. Your argument suggests that a minority group is being voted in repeatedly by a majority that opposes them. I cannot fathom that. If not then you’re saying that the electorate and the population is just a bunch of idiots who have no clue what they are doing.]

  33. Dictionary Avatar
    Dictionary

    DJ:

    A footnote, as I happened to pass back.

    We live in a time where the very definition of marriage itself — thus of stable family (the foundation of stable people and societies . . . ) — is under ideological manipulation by radical and powerful homosexual-ISTS. People who have — for decades, back to at least the 60’s in sources I have seen — openly declared intent to undermine or even destroy the family itself in pursuit of creating a cultural comfort zone for sexual behaviour which is blatantly contrary to the plain and indeed obvious creational/ natural purpose of maleness and femaleness.

    In turn, this is driven by the amoral, radical relativistic implications of evolutionary materialistic secular humanism; which thereby reveals its intellectual incoherence and moral bankruptcy.

    For, if all knowledge is relative, there is no knowledge (including the “knowledge” that all is relative!); and if morality reduces to the interests of those who hold power in a culture, then it is well known (and has been known ever since Plato analysed Alcibiades’ community- destructive failings in The Laws, Book X) the resulting is-ought gap leads straight tot he terrible principle: might makes right.

    By contrast, only when we have a foundational IS that is inherently moral can the IS solidly ground the OUGHT.

    Historically — for good reason — in our civilisation, that IS has been understood to be the Lord God and Creator of the Bible; decisively answering the Euthyphro dilemma.

    (As just one example of all this: in the case of UK overseas territories in the Caribbean, it has been subtly written into the draft constitutions passed to us by the FCO. Indeed, part of the subtext on the recent brouhaha on BBC regarding the accusation that the Cayman Islands adjusted draft establishes the Christian faith and values — cf the actual preamble here to see how the accusing UK MPs twisted the facts by distorting the clause they complained of and by suppressing the very next clause in their statements — was that in Clause 9, the Caymanians amended the FCO “right to marry” clause by inserting that adult persons have a right to marry a person of the OPPOSITE sex. No need to hold something so crude and unpredictable as a majority vote, just use positions of power and influence . . . media, courtrooms, financial intimidation, terms of getting aid projects and grants, etc, etc. And, to get an idea of how these folks play the public discussion game, cf this on another issue that is often headlined. Just substitute a few different terms, claimed “consensus” findings of science, use different buzz words and hijack the language of civil rights through questionable science and even more questionable redefintions.)

    So, not only is the homosexual-IST agenda coming from very powerful quarters, but it is being pushed on us right here in the Caribbean.

    And, the BBC — whose newsroom, according to knowledgeable eyewitness sources with whom I have conversed, is dominated by homosexual advocates [similar to the other major anglophone media trend-setter, the New York Times] — is a part of that process.

    G’day

    Dictionary

  34. Dictionary Avatar
    Dictionary

    PS: Reflect on the facet of Plato’s parable of the cave where manipulative shadow shows create a distortion and slavery that the denizens confuse for reality and freedom respectively. Simply update the technology to include ideologised education systems, mass media, Radio, TV and Internet-tied computers.

    Or, as Jesus ever so aptly put it in the Sermon on the Mount:

    Matt 6: 22″The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. 23But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

  35. Dennis Jones (aka Living in Barbados) Avatar
    Dennis Jones (aka Living in Barbados)

    @ Dictionary // December 1, 2009 at 8:32 PM Some of your links are broken.

    I am not much taken by conspiracy theories or notions of social lobbies trying to determine my life. I am taken by notions of large economically powerful lobbies trying to determine my life. As far as I can determine none of these has a sexual preference agenda.

    If I put the various conspirers together, assuming that each bloc is valid, I wonder where they will meet. Just for one, where will the Jihadists and the so-called homosexual lobby find their point of intersection? Will non-Muslims all have been blown up before we can get a chance to be convinced about same sex marriages? Where should sane people turn?

  36. Dictionary Avatar
    Dictionary

    DJ:

    Your dismissive remark on “conspiracy theories” (in a context where we are dealing with a powerfully influential ideological movement not a behind- closed- doors conspiracy) in absence of engaging the specific examples I gave — e.g. attempted imposition of homosexualised marriage in the Caribbean through constitutional revision [e.g. clause 9 for Montserrat most emphatically does not have the “of the opposite sex” safety phrase] — is telling.

    Here is clause 9 from Cayman:

    Protection of the right to marry etc.

    9.—(1) Every man and woman of marriageable age (as determined by or under any law) has the right to marry a person of the opposite sex and found a family.

    [The Montserrat version, e.g., is identical in phrasing and numbering, but tellingly omits the highlighted phrase. “[R]ight” is also inappropriate in this context, as that implies that someone else has a duty to marry the person having that “right.” It would be more correct to say that one has the freedom to marry, but of course that cuts across the “same sex rights” movement’s catch-word. In short, this contrast between two Caribbean territories dealing with the UK government on this matter since the late 1990’s, reveals: [1] attempted imposition of homosexualisation of marriage IN THE CARIBBEAN, [2] that it is coming from the de-Christianised north, [3] that it is coming through use of position of influence, [3] that — as it uses the clever device of omitting a reasonable safety limitation and so takes effect by implication — it seeks to change law without open discussion of alternatives and implications costs and benefits, [3] it does so by hijacking the key — and emotionally loaded — concept of rights. Who can oppose a “right”? (But, is what we are dealing with, in light of the inherent nature of maleness and femaleness and the needs of children who take about 20 years to really reach maturity, is this a matter of right or of responsibility to provide a properly protective and sound family climate? And, I hold a similarly dim view of the tendency of concubinage and single parent families in our region.)

    As to economic determinism/agendas and the like, I will simply cite that well known economist Lord Keynes, at the close of his epochal General Theory:

    . . . the ideas of economists and political philosophers [i.e. ideologies], both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. I am sure that the power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas. Not, indeed, immediately, but after a certain interval; for in the field of economic and political philosophy there are not many who are influenced by new theories after they are twenty-five or thirty years of age, so that the ideas which civil servants and politicians and even agitators apply to current events are not likely to be the newest. But, soon or late, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.

    In short, policy is shaped by ideas, which may be held not only without being aware of them, but may be held through the classic error of perceiving them without critical assessment as “reality.” That is, the tyranny of unexamined metaphysics at the focus of the parable of Plato’s cave lurks yet again.

    Down that road lies what Barbara Tuchman aptly described as The March of Folly.

    But then, as Santayana warned, those who refuse to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat its worst chapters, AND by and large we refuse to learn those lessons.

    Given the precedent of the manner of collapse of the Roman Republic and the onward course of the resulting Empire until the western portion fell apart utterly across C 5, I am extremely pessimistic on the prospects for not only our region but our civilisation; unless we wake up and seriously address the gravity of our situation before it is too late.

    If, it is not already too late.

    Dictionary

    PS: FYI, the Caribbean is an emerging theatre of operations for the geostrategic, multidimensional contest — war has reverted to a complex of ideological, economic, social and military factors so that there are now no purely military strategies (if there ever were . . . per Clausewitz on war as the continuation of politics) — between the secularists, apostates and neopagans from the north, and the Islamists from the east. Both want us for cannon fodder. And we had better wake up to that pronto.

    PPS: I have given a link on the Cayman draft constitution that SHOULD work. Failing that, google on that phrase, or try here for the download source page. If other links don’t work, let me know.

  37. Dictionary Avatar
    Dictionary

    PPPS: Note too, Keynes’ suggested lag from ideas to power agendas on the ground: it is the ideas one meets in the years up to the second half of the third decade of life — the classic period in which BTW the great revolutionary Physicists formulated their epochal theories, e.g. Newton, Maxwell, Einstein — that take hold as policy when that generation rises to positions of power. That typically is in the 40’s – 50’s.

    So we need to think back to the avant garde evolutionary materialist and secular humanist ideas of 15 – 25 years ago to predict which dead academics and what ideological agendas will most likely rule the immediate future.

    For the Caribbean, that points to [1] repackaged marxism [hence private economic interests vs Government agendas presented as protecting environment or rights or sustainability of development needs, etc]. It also points to [2] the Hunter-Marsden 1980’s After the Ball agenda to exploit empathy for AIDS victims to promote homosexualisation of the culture. And, [3] it points to repackaging of other ideologies of global subjugation under the banner of resistance to real or imagined instances of Western oppression.

    If that sounds uncomfortably close to our current global issues, it should.

  38. Dennis Jones (aka Living in Barbados) Avatar
    Dennis Jones (aka Living in Barbados)

    @Dictionary // December 2, 2009 at 4:58 AM You believe that “we are dealing with a powerfully influential ideological movement”. I do not.

    I would not choose Montserrat and Cayman Islands as examples of ‘attempted imposition of homosexualised marriage in the Caribbean through constitutional revision’. Neither has self rule, so are very much at the behest of their ruler, the British Government.

    Your quotation from Keynes, ‘ideas of economists and political philosophers..both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. ‘ is an opinion not a truth. I believe that both are powerful, but not all powerful. To believe otherwise would negate my Christian faith.

    I could pull out some other Keynesian gems too. I could also point to many Keynesian theories that are totally wrong. So, make of his views what you will. But, I prefer to think it through for myself.

  39. Dictionary Avatar
    Dictionary

    P4S: DJ, O/T — tidal wave 2 [TW2], from the East, not TW no 1, from the north — but important enough to footnote: Both Non-Muslims and non Jihadist muslims are being blown up — and otherwise massacred — by islamist radicals across the world on a routine basis, for decades. But if one is fixated on the West as the source of subjugation and oppression, one will be blind to the implications of the radical Islamist interpretations of Muslim traditions and history. For instance, one will not learn from the general media on the implications of the Black Flag army from the direction of Khorasan hadiths, which has been taken up by Al Qaeda and the Taliban. (Khorasan is E Iran and east thereof, with particular relevance to Afghanistan and Pakistan etc. Such armies are projected by the hadiths to be led by the mahdi, who will conquer the ME, massacre the Jews with the aid of Prophet Isa [an Islamic version on an eschatological Jesus] and subjugate the world. Once such armies emerge, muslims are urged in the relevant hadiths to join them even if they must crawl over ice and snow — highly relevant to the terrain just identified — to do so. Implications for the US’ ongoing engagement in that region, and for the ongoing Iranian push to get the nukes for the mahdi, are obvious. [And for those who still want to imagine that suitcase or backpack or footlocker nukes are a myth, kindly read here and here. Read here for a GUARDIAN article on IAEA concern over Iranian development of 2-point detonation, linear implosion nuke tech, the underlying basis for such nukes. The key tech issue is that critical mass is a shape-sensitive condition, so an implosion that pushes a previously sub-critical mass of fissile material into a more or less spherical shape can make it go supercritical. Guns and implosions are used for this, and a 2-point implosion design is the basis for the smallest nukes. NB: adding a fusion module would boost such a mini nuke to Hiroshima bomb power. City- buster power: read Manhattan and City of London etc here.)

    But, we should not allow this TW 2 stuff to distract us from the core issue for this thread, a major aspect of TW 1.

  40. Dennis Jones (aka Living in Barbados) Avatar
    Dennis Jones (aka Living in Barbados)

    @ Dictionary // December 2, 2009 at 6:09 AM “But if one is fixated…” [I try to not be fixated. I’ve found that fixations means that I think I know what I see is all I need worry about and then something comes along to surprise me. I look around and am wary of many things, even those that seem benign.]

  41. Dictionary Avatar
    Dictionary

    DJ:

    Pardon, but you are being dismissive and strawmannish again.

    I am citing specific cases where there is a sustained attempt since the late 1990’s to insert homosexual marriage into Constitutional law in the Anglophone, Commonwealth Caribbean, using leverage from inside institutions of power and influence, here the FCO of the UK.

    You know or should know that legal precedent is powerful.

    FYFI, Montserrat [where the imposition from the de-christianised north is closest to realisation . . . “duppy/jumbie know who fe frighten”] happens to be a founding — and historically influential — member of Caricom, and is also a member of the OECS.

    Moreover, the underlying ideology of evolutionary materialist secular humanism and how it is imposed in the name of “rights” — which can have no stable grounding in such an inherently amoral and self-referentially incoherent system of thought — is what we need to recognise and address.

    Starting from recognising as the Caymanians did, that marriage reflects an inherent creationally based natural complementarity of the opposite sexes.

    A creational, natural complemetarity that the homosexualists would want us to forget. Exactly as Rom 1 warns.

    G’day

    Dictionary

    PS: Most knowledge is “right opinion,” i.e. the mere fact that I have cited a statement by a major economist — whose ideas went on to shape a generation of global development thought [i.e. there is a measure of self-authenticating self-evidence in the point . . . ] — is not a sound basis for dismissing the point he had to make. The claim is unfortunately well warranted, and indeed, Keynes was hinting at e.g. Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin and co when he spoke of madmen in power distilling their ideas from scribblings of defunct politicians and ideologues. And in the context of the modern world, public policy is indeed strongly, decisively and predominantly shaped by lagged avant garde ideologies — as our own day demonstrates. [On the Christian view, from Ac 17, God uses the resulting chaos due to our willful sinful folly to bring our attention to the need to repent and seek reformation under Him. In short, this is Psalm 2 in action: the lords of the earth — including the professoriat — often rise up in rebellion and build systems in defiance of God, only to fall victim to confusion as at Babel. But, there is a better way if we are humble enough to learn that “the Fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge and wisdom, so that it is fools who despise godly wisdom and instruction.”]

  42. Dictionary Avatar
    Dictionary

    PPS: DJ, the fixation I discussed is a generic challenge faced by many of our region’s intelligentsia today; and among many across our wider civilisation. It is of such longstanding prevalence that the marxists routinely exploited it through their “liberation movement” strategy for imposing Marxist dictatorship, and even Hitler used it when he rhetorically made Roosevelt look foolish to inquire on Germany’s expansionist intent across Europe and the ME in 1939. Roosevelt’s point was lost in the acid laugh over how Britain and France had carved up the colonised wider world, and on how Roosevelt sat on the bones of the dead Indians while pontificating on refraining from conquest. But after six years, 40 million dead and a devastated continent a harsh lesson had been taught on the importance of understanding that sometimes one has to side with the lesser of evils to resist a greater danger; while thereby building up credit points for demanding reformation of he lesser evil in the days to come. (It is no accident that there was a wave of independence post WW 2.)

  43. Dictionary Avatar
    Dictionary

    Footnote: it should be clear that I am not advocating Keynesianism in general [while noting that his thought decisively reshaped economic thought so that all modern macro-thought is shaped by his insights]; just, noting a specific point where Lord Keynes was right — and was easily demonstrably right — on the influence of ideology as opposed to interests. So, the misleading strawman rhetorical stratagem of putting Keynesianism whole into my mouth to dismiss it and the specific claim at stake without having to address it on the merits, fails.

  44. Dennis Jones (aka Living in Barbados) Avatar
    Dennis Jones (aka Living in Barbados)

    @Dictionary, my being ‘dismissive’ should not be a surprise: I disagree with your arguments so being ADmissive would seem contradictory.

    I cannot accept as legal precedent something that should not apply. Montserrat and the Cayman Islands are NOT self-governing, so much of what they have to deal with is ‘imposed’ by their ruler, the British government. That does not set precendents for independent Caribbean/CARICOM countries. Being a member or Caricom etc does not change that basic governance issue.

    The Caymanian view is just that…a view.

    I’m glad that you are not advocating Keynesianism, as you would have many more battles to fight.

    I would rather that, by remaining non-fixated, you will have time and energy and views to deal with the other pressing issues that are in front and around and behind us.

    I see ‘sexual abuse serious issue in the subregion’ as worthy for today. One of the study’s interesting findings is how people see it as ‘normal’ to have sex with minors.

  45. Dictionary Avatar
    Dictionary

    DJ:

    You know or should know that you need to engage issues on the merits: fact, logic, explanatory scope and power.

    Dismissal without doing so is improper for a serious context. And that is what I objected to, explicitly. I do not appreciate the serial strawmannising of my remarks by snipping out bits and pieces to make up a simplistic version for a further dismissal rhetorical tack.

    As to your idea that homosexualising constitutional law precedents in M’rat, Cayman TCI, BVI and I believe Anguilla too would have no influence in the Caribbean and wider Commonwealth, I simply suggest to you that the effort by the FCO’s mavens to put this through as a thin edge of the wedge speaks volumes to the opposite.

    Besides, this is one of several current examples.

    Just this morning the local AIDS committee coord read a UN statement from Mr Ban Ki Moon that spoke of protection of at-risk groups which is just as loaded with implications.

    And, as Zoe has noted on above, the big push on Jamaica is EXPLICITLY towards targetting the whole Caricom region. As precedents show, once sodomy or buggery laws are off the books, the next push is to homosexualise marriage. (This was actually reported in the J’ca Star from a Canada based correspondent in 2008!)

    D

  46. Dictionary Avatar
    Dictionary

    PS: Sex abuse and physical abuse of those in one’s power are reprehensible, as is exploitation of minors — as I noted on already. But this should not be a distractor from other things that are important; as once Jesus rebuked his disciples for harshly criticising Mary of Bethany fro an extravagant act of worship and defiance of the authorities already plotting to kill Jesus — and her brother Lazarus. paraphrasing, the sex abusers and heterosexual pedophiles we have always with us, and can — and do [M’rat just had a major public consultation on the matter, duly sponsored by the Governor] — address them anytime. But, even failure to address that adequately does not then imply that we should be silent in the face of a global agenda of dechristianisation and one of its key points of effort, homosexualisation of our civlisation. Just, that we have yet another item to put on the national-regional agenda! “Both and,” not “either or but not both.” The red herring rhetorical tactic fails.

  47. Dennis Jones (aka Living in Barbados) Avatar
    Dennis Jones (aka Living in Barbados)

    @ Dictionary // December 2, 2009 at 9:08 AM “You know or should know that you need to engage issues on the merits: fact, logic, explanatory scope and power.” [I do and have, mentally. I certainly do not need to do that verbally, and given the nature of a blog, it seems to me inappropriate. I gave the essence of my views. I do not need to write a treatise or copy someone else’s.]

    I see no reason to change my view about the major difference between British Overseas Territories and independent countries. Your saying that it matters does not change the logic that I believe applies.

    I have not heard the statement to which you refer, but am not surprised that it has ‘implications’. It would be meaningless otherwise. Whether it is loaded with them, or they are loaded, I cannot say. But in the larger scheme of things, I would not be too concerned with yet another UN statement.

    ‘As precedents show, once sodomy or buggery laws are off the books, the next push is to homosexualise marriage.’ [You really are pressing the pedal on air here. Nothing came of the action promised/threatened. Having an agenda and a plan of action is not a sin–it shows some sense of direction. That said, one group having it does not do anything to ensure that it makes progress. I like to give people credit that they will accept what they want to, not what is forced on them.]

  48. Dennis Jones (aka Living in Barbados) Avatar
    Dennis Jones (aka Living in Barbados)

    @Dictionary, what does ‘global agenda of dechristianisation’ mean in a world that is not predominantly Christian? Moreover, what could it mean when looked at historically for its relative newness as a religion. Have you decided to just do away with pre-Christian history?

    I see plenty of red herrings, and grey mullets too.

  49. Dictionary Avatar
    Dictionary

    DJ:

    You have simply missed the point.

    Again, the case ofcCayman etc showed that homosexualists are indeed pushing their agenda in the region, and are using institutional influences to do so; including pushing a precedent into Commonwealth Constitutional law.

    As touchinghe implicaitons of removal of sodomy/buggery laws, you need to consider the very recent case of Lawrence in the US; which promptly led to the push for homosexualisation of marriage once an act of demonstrably unhealthy — cf comparative odds on getting HIV on being a participant in homosexual practices and on being a member of the population — perversion was twisted though law made from the bench into an acceptable practice of “love”, the first case being within six months.

    And, the agenda in question is what was to be shown.

    With several illustrative examples IN OUR REGION, it has.

    And that is right on the money relative to the focus of the thread. And, so, that’s no red herring.

    G’day

    D

    PS: You will note on global push of dechristianisation that the Christian faith and the civilisation that it has shaped over 2000 years is the most widespread in the world, and the most influential. The dechristianisation of our civilisation at the hands of secularists and neopagans with various types of apostates in support, has direct global consequences. And, some pretty serious implications once we see that radical relativist secular humanist evolutionary materialism — as has been known since the days of Plato’s the laws [as was linked already] is inherently amoral, setting out to undermine the basis for all values of consequence. Which is worse than simply immoral.

  50. Zoe Avatar
    Zoe

    @Dennis Jones, Dictionary is undeviatingly and fittingly right in his appraisement of your attitude:

    “Dismissal without doing so is improper for a serious context. And that is what I objected to, explicitly. I do not appreciate the serial *strawmannising* [that’s all you’ve done DJ!] of my remarks by *snipping* out bits and pieces to make up versions for further dismissal [exactly so!] rhetorical attack.” emphasis added.

    DJ, you simple cannot deal with the cogent, well-founded, well-gounded, telling points of argument, so coherently presented by Dictionary; you fail terribly in not engaging as he correctly points out, ‘….issue of the merit: facts, logic, explanatory scope and power.

    You then seek cover and hide behind, “I do and have, mentally. I certainly do not need to do that, and given the nature of a blog [cop out, DJ!) it seems to me inappropriate [another Croak, DJ!] I do not need to write a treatise or copy someone’s else’s.”

    You then go on to say, “I would rather that, by remaining non-fixated, you will have time and energy and views to deal with ‘other’ pressing issues that are in ‘front’ and ‘around’ and ‘behind’ us.”

    DJ, the serious issues that Dictionary has presented, coupled with other’s that are pressing on with their agendas world wide, with the Caribbean region identified as another trageted arena for this immoral thrust of imposition, et al, are most certainly, to use your own words, ‘…that are in *front* and *around* and *behind* us.” emphasis added.

    DJ, sorry man, but at this point, your ‘feet’ seem to be firmly planted in mid-air!

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