The sex thread

Post by **_Trevor** » Sun Dec 30, 2007 8:59 pm

Coggins7 wrote:I have correctly identified the general intellectual template you have used to critique my claims, which is a postmodern one. This is why your "critique" isn't really a philosophical critique at all, but an epistemological evasion, in classic postmodern style. What you have essentially said is that no critique of the sixties (or, by extension, anything else), is any closer to the truth, or in anyway more substantive or accurate, than any other. This is the epistemological relativism, or nihilism, for which postmodern thought has come to be associated, and for which its adherents are, in their own minds, justifiably proud.

I am done discussing this or anything else with you, Coggins. You have your head so far up your ass that you have no idea what I am saying.

Post by **_Coggins7** » Sun Dec 30, 2007 9:04 pm

All I've done is identify the intellectual template you have used to criticize my own assertions. Apparently you don't like being "outed" as a purveyor of Postmodern ring around the rosie. That doesn't surprise me; neither would I.

Post by **_Trevor** » Sun Dec 30, 2007 9:06 pm

Coggins7 wrote:All I've done is identify the intellectual template you have used to criticize my own assertions. Apparently you don't like being "outed" as a purveyor of Postmodern ring around the rosie. That doesn't surprise me; neither would I.

You are imagining my "template" because you have to do so in order to criticize me for it. I am not a postmodernist you twit.

Post by **_Jason Bourne** » Sun Dec 30, 2007 10:21 pm

Oh, by the way, speaking of Alma, do you believe that the Book of Mormon is a record of actual historical characters and events?

Is that a new TR question? Is it required to be LDS or even LDS in good standing?

Post by **_Coggins7** » Sun Dec 30, 2007 11:25 pm

Is that a new TR question? Is it required to be LDS or even LDS in good standing?

It is a core, central truth claim of the Church. The entire Church is based upon it. If the Book of Mormon is not historical, than Joseph Smith was an utter fraud in claiming that it was, and the entire origin story of the Church, including Moroni, the Gold Plates, the Whitenesses, the translation, everything, collapses.

If the characters in the Book of Mormon did not actually exist, then they never experienced the things that book says they experienced. In that case, the book is purely fictional-and purely theoretical; it ceases to be a guide for the present because the crux of the Gospel-its application to actual mortal struggles with evil and opposition, becomes purely fictionalized. That is, made up. Religion then becomes a strictly abstract exercise in which lofty principles exist as little black marks on white paper but nothing more; the exploits and struggles of real people living real gospel principles against a background of spiritual insight, miraculous intervention, and the hand of God moving amongst his faithful servants protecting, guiding, and preserving them, is lost.

But that is, indeed, how so many want the Book of Mormon no? Many of us don't want those characters to be real; we don't want the Book of Mormon to be a record of real people living out a great drama against the backdrop of the continuance of the War in Heaven upon the earth and the Plan of Salvation because that historicity just brings the book and its teachings just a little to closes to home. That makes it too real, too imminent, too down to earth. And we don't want our religion too down to earth do we, because that implies a direct confrontation with our own lives as parallel to those lives, historically lived, in the Book of Mormon.

Liberal Protestants have rejected Jesus as divine, the concept of miracles, and have come to cling to the "historical Jesus" for the same reasons: he's much more docile and much more purely symbolic. We don't want too much literalism in our religion because that brings it right to our doorstep.

Post by **_Coggins7** » Sun Dec 30, 2007 11:30 pm

You are imagining my "template" because you have to do so in order to criticize me for it. I am not a postmodernist you twit.

Whether you are a postmodernist or not is irrelevant. You used a postmodernist form of argument against me; i.e., claiming that my analysis was nothing more that one more historical myth among many, and of no more value than any of the others. Either you don't know what postmodernism is, and don't understand when your using its intellectual categories, or you do, but you quite rightly don't want to be tarred and feathered by association with it.

Roll the dice one more time Trevor

Post by **_Roger Morrison** » Mon Dec 31, 2007 12:09 am

Coggins7 wrote:
Interesting to blame the march of scientific advancement as the cause of 'moral degeneracy'... IF I understand you correctly??

Which apparently you do not. I see no place in which Charity imputed blame to technological advancement for "moral degeneracy". Where do you see this? She made a very, rather pedestrian observation regarding the sexual revolution aspect of the cultural shifts that occurred beginning in the mid to late sixties to the effect that the huge turn to premarital sexual activity, sexual promiscuity as a viable personal option, and the general breakdown of older sexual mores was generated, to a great extent, not just by ideological shifts (which set the philosophical and attitudinal scaffolding), but by the technological breakthrough of the Pill, which made the entire thing feasible in a practical sense. Abortion on demand then made the consequences of much of the, what was then called, the "New Morality" a moot subject, removing both the stigma and responsibilities of unwed motherhood from the cultural landscape.

Where do you draw the line with such a supposition--science leading, not simply contributing to--'licensiousness'? Seems religious-retrogressives have attempted to defame a great number of scientific discoveries as interfering with "God's" ways?? In your mind, does "reliable birth control" serve any useful purpose?

You're setting up a strawman here. Charity is not blaming technology for the sexual revolution. Nor have I seen her anywhere blame the invention of the VCR or the Internet for the spread of pornography.

Loran, thanks for your understanding of Charity's post. You know how difficult it is to connect dot some times in our exchanges? ;-) Had she not sited "modern methods of birth control" as what appeared to me as the supporting factor to her point of "immorality"--from which i can only conclude is "sexual immorality" since Harmony's OP is about "sex", not morality, or immorality... Sorry i digress. I await her response.

"...invention of the VCR or the Internet..." Come on Bro??? Shouldn't be that hard to remain on 'her' topic--within this one--as i understood it, "the pill": medical advancement ie organ transplant, etc. etc. My legitamate question followed, and remains, "...does "reliable birth control" serve any useful purpose?..." (in her opinion) remains unanswered.

Maybe a divergence from more germane, but: what say you to that question? Warm regards, Roger

Post by **_Trevor** » Mon Dec 31, 2007 2:05 am

Coggins7 wrote:Roll the dice one more time Trevor

I'm afraid the only one rolling dice here is you Coggins, and you have yet to come up with a winning roll.

Post by **_Coggins7** » Mon Dec 31, 2007 3:36 am

"...invention of the VCR or the Internet..." Come on Bro??? Shouldn't be that hard to remain on 'her' topic--within this one--as I understood it, "the pill": medical advancement ie organ transplant, etc. etc. My legitamate question followed, and remains, "...does "reliable birth control" serve any useful purpose?..." (in her opinion) remains unanswered.

No, its just that pornography really didn't take off until the 80s and the general spread of home video. Deep Throat and traditional film distribution brought it out of the shadows, so to speak (as well as the general eroticization of Hollywood, i.e. the "obligatory sex scene" of the seventies), but the VCR mainstreamed and popularized it by making it much more available and discreet. The Web has finalized that process.

Post by **_harmony** » Mon Dec 31, 2007 4:57 am

Coggins7 wrote:
"...invention of the VCR or the Internet..." Come on Bro??? Shouldn't be that hard to remain on 'her' topic--within this one--as I understood it, "the pill": medical advancement ie organ transplant, etc. etc. My legitamate question followed, and remains, "...does "reliable birth control" serve any useful purpose?..." (in her opinion) remains unanswered.

No, its just that pornography really didn't take off until the 80s and the general spread of home video. Deep Throat and traditional film distribution brought it out of the shadows, so to speak (as well as the general eroticization of Hollywood, I.e. the "obligatory sex scene" of the seventies), but the VCR mainstreamed and popularized it by making it much more available and discreet. The Web has finalized that process.

Tell that to the people who've read the Kama Sutra for thousands of years. Or what about the ancient erotica that abounded in ancient Rome? You really need to get out more, Loran. Porn wasn't invented in the 80's, and it certainly wasn't socially unacceptable thousands of years ago. Just put ancient erotica into Google, and you'll find a host of website detailing what was commonplace thousands of years ago.