Religion needs to stay out of sexual ethics

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In other words, "Keep your religion out of my sex life, and I will keep my sex life out of your religion"!

Would you care to justify this statement?

Actually, I was hoping for some valid evidence to back up the claim, but I guess a few more pages of anecdotes, apocrypha, and assumptions wouldn't hurt.



For the record, and for the sake of the discussion, I dug this definition out of Wikipedia:

Bloedig Ell, my "ad hoc rules"? You mean that I would like to understand what you are saying?

Well, Chooser not Fnord, tell, me then, HOW do you explain the mokshing of stroglet? If you refuse to skren, I denounce you as a cob.

HOW, Mzee mit den Mvi so wie Schnee, are we better off if you and the shock troops toktok takataka without even you knowing wat je bedoelt?

Thanks for the lesson in asking for evidence, people limited to blind faith can justify anything simply by making up what suits and ignoring all credible evidence.

I have looked in vain for any place where you requested evidence - and I cannot guess what claim it is for which you demand evidence.

I do not understand why you indignantly rejected my query as to your definition of ethics, and then post a kind of definition, even though it is not what YOU mean by ethics but what some wikipediast came up with.

I say again: do not pretend you want anything but to be a droll troll if all you do is refuse to discuss and blaf at others.

many feminists, no matter the generation also oppose prostitution. i think that while many may start out young supporting its legalization, most feminist circles and conferences I frequent with a slightly more mature audience all oppose the trading of sexual favor for anything, be it food stamps, money, or tickets to see an NBA game. Not even if its consentual - it supports an oppressive "system" that reinforces sexual trafficking, violence against women, and the simple one-directional nature of it being a man trading something for sex with the women (sometimes, if its rape, its free), reinforces unjust, unequal, and unbalanced roles between the two sexes. And, Johns don't need redlight districts to do any of the above(which they also oppose).

Which I somewhat agree with.

But it is idiocy to say that it is a "system" that is constructed that allows this to happen in the first place, and not at least acknowledge the dirty or fallen aspects / nature of man.

So - let me try to sum up what I THINK I understand here.

A. Individuals and groups have lists of behaviors required, preferred, discouraged and forbidden.

B. Those in the group who transgress will be sanctioned or at least negatively valued by the group.

C. Those who see violating the ethical code as worth the risk are likely to do so, UNLESS

D. They have internalized the code as a system of values they would not willingly sin against.

E. Those who have the power to do so sometimes impose their rules on other groups.

F. In a nation such as the US, only those who control the government should impose their rules on others.

G. Therefore, no other group should try to stop people from the free use of alcohol, the free use of other drugs, sexual activity with whomever or whatever, cheating the consumer, or any other misdeed from any individual group's list.

H. But those who control the government can and should restrict or regulate or tax the use of tobacco, sex with minors, unlicensed sales, mentioning God, and any other activity they choose to declare contrary to ethics.

I think there is a great deal of supposition being made here that:

a) theistic moral viewpoints do not have ontological grounding.

b) that atheistic moral viewpoints do have ontological grounding.

It is my contention that viewpoints with the strongest ontological foundations, with regard to morality, are the ones with the strongest basis for moral epistemology and that on atheism, there is nothing like the firm ontological foundation that can be provided by theism.

If your individual position is ontological nihilism, that is, there is no ontological foundation for moral values, then you really have no basis for making the OP's statement in the first place. If your position is that there are ontological moral values, then I suggest you ought to google the moral argument for the existence of God.

the moral code the so called "atheists" are usually argued for in one way or the other, this allows people negatively impacted by any wrongly imposed moral code to stand up for themselves and come with a well structured argument to oppose the original argument.

in the case of religious moral codes there are 2 categories, the ones anecdotally argued for via stories and metaphors, and the directly dictated "laws",

in the end though this has less to do with theist/atheist and more anout what common denomination we can find between all religions and what is directly observed and factual (i think this is what you mean by atheist).
in the context of sexuality there is as many moral codes as there are religions * the amount of different societies on earth.
so in any free society it would stand to reason that there should be no official standard on sexuality, it should be decided by people themselves using real objectively verifiable knwoledge and not moral teachings.

This is basically what i have been arguing.

Moreover, much of the ontological basis of religious moral codes is rendered specious by the vagueries induced by the passage of a great deal of time.

Observant jews eschew crustaceans because they are bottom feeders, thus eat poop, and are thus a likely source of disease a couple thousand years ago. The same rule applies to swine. A very long time ago when it was a lot harder to stay alive, these were just plain good advice, but today there is no logical basis for their proscription.

The rule against the combination of meat and dairy was intended to outlaw the practice of a cult that liked to prepare an animal in a stew of it's mother's milk. A little twisted, but one faith's abomination is another faith's sacrament, and this sort of argument has no place in the governing of a nation with more than one faith.

If the catholics had their way there would be no condoms at all. Their reasoning for this is difficult to explain without a "because god said so" element.

I propose that although the ontological foundation provided by theism is both large and ornate, it is anything but firm.

What you are discussing here is moral epistemology, not moral ontology. My argument has been that you are skipping the foundational, ontological, question. Moral Epistemology deals with what is and what is not right or wrong, ontology deals with what makes something right or wrong... they are two separate subjects. Before you start discussing the question of what is right, you need first build an ontological foundation for it.



This, again is a discussion epistemology.



This is not a powerful argument. From the claim that there are many epistemological statements surrounding sexual ethics it does not follow that there are no objective statements. This is specious reasoning.



This is a statement about knowing what is good, not what is good; as such it is an epistemological statement; once again, posters have skipped the ontological question.



This is more epistemology and in relation to Christianity, not really a correct statement from a doctrinal point of view. Christians are not required to keep the food laws of ancient Israel, they existed because they were apart of God's desire to set the Jews apart from their neighbors, for more information please check out Paul Copan's book, 'Is God a Moral Monster'.



That is a huge generalization. Divine Command Ethics, as it is constructed in as an ontological foundation within Catholic morality holds that God is a maximally great being. One of the attributes that relates to this is that God is maximally good, from this he issues divine commands that reflect his goodness and are thus objectively binding. As to condoms, that is another epistemological statement.



You have not said anything about moral ontology.

I think you are making a boorish argument that has been disingenuously armored with jargon, so I'm going to just walk away and let you believe that you won this one.

are we talking normative or descriptive moral codes here?

a little food for thought
Bernard Williams stated that, "Either one's motives for following the moral word of God are moral motives, or they are not. If they are, then one is already equipped with moral motivations, and the introduction of God adds nothing extra. But if they are not moral motives, then they will be motives of such a kind that they cannot appropriately motivate morality at all ... we reach the conclusion that any appeal to God in this connection either adds to nothing at all, or it adds the wrong sort of thing."

Normative and descriptive moral codes are, most often, relativistic.... relativistic ethics, by definition does not have ontological foundations. So your post is actually presenting a false dilemma to me, since I am arguing in favor of the need to justify a moral foundation. This is also, and it is important to note, no just a complaint that a theist would make against the position being put forward in the OP. Rather it is one any foundationalist or nihilist would make. Relativists are actually under siege from all directions.



The failure of this quote is that it posits, falsely, that God and man are on an equal level when evaluating the moral worth of things. If God is a maximally great being, with certain attributes, then it follows naturally and inexorably that he is in a better position from which to discuss morality than we are; given that nothing can be more moral than himself. An appeal to God, on Christian theism, is an appeal to objective knowledge. So this criticism does not carry much weight.

well i would argue that the actions of god in the bible and many other deities around the world show they are perfectly capable of immoral behavior.
all christians are atheists as well, real atheists simply believe in one less god.


i am not advocating relativist morals, both normative and descriptive moral codes can be relatavist, anti realism, realistic, nihilistic and absolute.
the difference lies in how one presents and argue for your moral code.

the gist being that one says "because" the other promotes explanations and inquiry.