Re: Political correctness and tolerance (was Re: Secularizing Christmas

John Blake wrote:
On Fri, 09 Nov 2007 10:58:15 +0000, loiner2003
<loiner2003@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On 7 Nov, 21:55, John Blake <johnremovethisbl...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
Homosexuality is a sin and abomination before God;
Do you believe these two statements to be true?
If so, in the case of the first, is this because of the writings of
primitive people some 2000 of years or so ago, or is it your own,
reasoned belief?


"Such condescension", as Jane Austen might have said.

"Primitive" is not the opposite of "reasoned." Primitive peoples were technologically backward simply because they were early and di not have the benefit of millennia of study. But there is no evidence that they were any less capable of reason than we are.

Maybe not less capable but far less knowledgeable by present day
standards and full of misconceptions regarding the world around them.

Yes, of course. But just how knowledgeable are we, do you think? And do you really think that you are free from misconceptions about the world around us? How long is it since modern man has moved away from the idea that light can be explained simply in terms of the waves analogy? Or since scientists poo-poohed the idea of continental drift? In another 2000 years, should we survive that long, you and I will probably be dismissed as primitives.

Or do you think that one of those early people would fit in with
today's world if transported to our time?

It would be tough. How would you fit in if dropped, alone and without preparation, into a pygmy tribe in the Congo? But, given time, yes, I think they might well fit in eventually.

You talk dismissively of "those early people" as if we were dealing with Neanderthals. They were Homo as much Sapiens as you and I are. And I reckon some of them had a darn sight more sapientia than some of us.
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Set theory and identity theory
    ... treated as from identity theory and with the ordinary fixed semantics ... Hence I actually prefer to develop ZFC in the framework of /FOPL ... there's a REASON why considering "identity" a logical primitive (in FOPL ... a finite number of primitives provides some kind of special case. ...
    (sci.logic)
  • Re: Newbie question - Disadvantages of java
    ... primitives exist, as well as special types, and as was pointed out ... reference type you wouldn't be allowed to subclass it because TPTB would ... have forseen no reason to, and would have declared it final. ... Learning Java I think may be especially difficult for COBOL programmers. ...
    (comp.lang.java.programmer)
  • HEADSUP ABI breakage for future LOCK_PROFILING + non-LOCK_PROFILING usage
    ... The following change will go in shortly unless I hear a good reason ... bottom and lock_object ha been moved to the end of all synchronization ... primitives so that a kernel compiled without LOCK_PROFILING will ... It also gets us closer ...
    (freebsd-current)