Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site pyuxn.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!pyuxww!pyuxn!rlr From: rlr@pyuxn.UUCP (Rich Rosen) Newsgroups: net.motss,net.philosophy Subject: Re: "Justifying" beliefs based on "western moral tradition" Message-ID: <971@pyuxn.UUCP> Date: Mon, 13-Aug-84 10:00:39 EDT Article-I.D.: pyuxn.971 Posted: Mon Aug 13 10:00:39 1984 Date-Received: Tue, 14-Aug-84 02:12:04 EDT References: <3107@decwrl.UUCP> Organization: Bell Communications Research, Piscataway N.J. Lines: 37 > To advance your cause you appropriate > moral language of the Western tradition and stand it on it's head. > There is however, a public forum in which you had better be prepared with > more than slogans and calls for keeping it all very polite. You do yourselves > no favors by merely asserting the line that you can't help being homosexual > because the vast majority, I believe, do not buy that and will not buy that > without some kind of data or cogent argument to back it up. How does one alter a biased "morality" by using existing morality as a reference? Does one need to? Does it matter? Is morality just a popular consensus? Frankly, I'd be ashamed to have to use "western moral tradition" as the basis for any of my beliefs. This is the same morality that gave us the Spanish Inquisition, the witch trials, the pogroms, virulent anti-Semitism and anti- ANYTHINGism where that ANYTHING didn't fit in to its mold, and two bloody world wars. If *I* was asked to defend *my* beliefs based on western moral tradition, I'd simply laugh and win the argument by forfeit. As I mentioned in an earlier article, it would seem that the only way one would be allowed to propose a change in the moral structure (vacuous as it may be) is to 1) show that what you're proposing is already part of the moral tradition, and 2) secure an eleven tenths majority of the voting body that determines ultimate morality, be it popular consensus or secret conclave. On "justifying" sexuality based on biological factors/personal choice: > So where do we stand gang? Is there any responsibity for sexual behavior? > Heterosexual? Homosexual? Again, does it matter. Why is such a big deal made over this? Do people have to "justify" their sexuality? Their personal beliefs? Their tastes in music? Food? To whom? Why??????? -- It doesn't matter what you wear, just as long as you are there. Rich Rosen pyuxn!rlr