Wisdom and Cheese (General)

by dhw, Sunday, December 04, 2011, 19:22 (4545 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

There has obviously been a major misunderstanding between Tony and myself, which has arisen from my objection to the statement that “The intended purpose of mating is reproduction”, which makes homosexuality “[i dysfunctional[/i]”.

TONY: [...] biologically even you can not argue that, physically, mechanically, sex was not intended for reproduction.

Of course not, and this is the first source of misunderstanding, which is my fault. I should have emphasized “THE” purpose (though I did offer you an avuncular warning that if you believed there was no OTHER purpose, your marriage might run into trouble!). More in a moment. The second source is my questioning what was the point of your functional vs. dysfunctional contrast in the context of morality. I concluded that section by asking “And if your purpose is not to establish moral criteria, what is it?” You have answered: “My only purpose is clarity of understanding. There is a vast gulf between functional/ dysfunctional and a moral code.” For me terms like “dysfunctional” and “not normal” carry a negative connotation, which I wrongly took to be a judgement. “THE” purpose of sex suggests there is only one and so sex just for pleasure is dysfunctional, which again I took to be a judgement. My apologies.

The rest of your post follows on from this misunderstanding, but still creates problems for me. I am not, of course, disagreeing when you say “Two men having sex will not produce a baby.” (I learned from an early age that you need a male and a female to go looking under the gooseberry bush.) My point is that having children is not the only purpose of sex – and I think you’ve agreed that pleasure can be another purpose. This means that in the context of reproduction homosexual sex is dysfunctional, but in the context of pleasure it’s functional. You must forgive my obtuseness, which I realize is very frustrating for you, but I still don’t know what this clarifies, or indeed what I’m meant to understand generally through the functional/dysfunctional dichotomy.

There is one possible clue, which I’ll discuss somewhat hesitantly. You write that I “have often argued that the bible or other religions are not needed for the development of a moral code. So why should every statement in the bible be about this moral code that it doesn’t need to define?” (For the record, I do think moral codes have to be defined, but you don’t need religion to do the job.) You said earlier that Hebrew has no word for good or bad, so do you mean that the original biblical texts do NOT prescribe a moral code, but only talk in neutral terms of function/dysfunction? What would be the purpose of that? Surely not to inform us, for instance, that two men having sex won’t produce a baby. If the purpose is a neutral description of actions that won’t “work”, who decides what are the “intended purposes”? In terms of your ‘seven deadly sins’, the glutton can argue that he thoroughly enjoys the pleasures of eating; the greedy man can point to his millions and say he’s fulfilled his personal ambition to be rich, and what’s more he’s proud of it; the lustful Don Juan can revel in his pleasurable sexual conquests; the slothful scrounger can take it easy, living on his state benefits etc., and they can all say they've fulfilled their own purposes. No dysfunction there. But I say all of this “hesitantly”, because I might again be misinterpreting you. So perhaps you will spell out for me exactly what it is you’re clarifying.

Dhw: [...] given the choice, I would say it’s infinitely more important that we should try to gain an accurate understanding of people who now live in the same world as us but have “a different understanding of reality”. The result of not doing so may be catastrophic.

TONY: You ever consider that breaking the translation barrier of the bible, which many people consider the gospel truth of "god", might go a long way to generating some tolerance and understanding in the world? People would be much more likely to believe that the translator messed up than they would believing that their religions intentionally misled them.

We’re having a bad time with our communications! I’m really sorry, but I don’t understand any of this. What do you mean by “breaking the translation barrier”? A perfect translation? You would only get that if you and the author (“god”?) were bilingual, and sat down together to agree on the exact meaning of each word, assuming that both languages had exact equivalents. How can people conclude that the translator has messed up if they don’t understand the original text? Do religions mislead, or is it the people who interpret the religions that mislead? But I’m just guessing wildly here. More clarification, please! And many apologies again if I’m missing the obvious.