The Upper Room

TRiG

12:07 AM

@El'endiaStarman Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?

@Alypius single-word requests on EL&U are often (not always) pretty good questions. (I've asked only one, and that wasn't really a good question, but quite a few of them are.)

TRiG

12:25 AM

@waxeagle You call the definition of Christianity used here "hamhanded". I disagree.

Oct 5 '11 at 21:19, by TRiG

@Richard I disagree. I think it should be remembered that Christian is an English word. And words have different meanings in different contexts. And in secular context, "someone who considers zirself a Christian" is an excellent definition.

Alypius

1:04 AM

@TRiG Sure, but here they combine the lack of certainty (no real denomination in mind) with all the other negative qualities of guessing-game questions. It borders on meta-pastoral advice: "what church should I explore if I'm interested in..."

TRiG

@Alypius Oh, I'm not saying anything about how such "identify this" questions should translate to this site, because I really don't know. I can foresee them being occasionally useful and frequently problematic.

I'm just saying that they aren't automatically bad on all SE sites, the way some categories of questions are.

So you can't just say that it's a type of question that SE doesn't do; you have to actually make a decision about how to handle it on this site.

@Alypius Incidentally, I wrote some blog posts recently which touch on this topic.

I'm not going to be polite about it; Marriage: what it means; The Catholic Church had slaves.

These topics, rather. The general topic of how polite you should be in discussions about equality (which I think was our most specific disagreement); the more specific topic of marriage equality (which we never got around to disagreeing over); and the moral status of the Catholic Church.

Alypius

@TRiG Right. To clarify, I'm not using the label "guessing game" just to clobber, I'm saying that the problems discussed in that link (fun and interesting, but ultimately unfair, impractical, etc.) seem to apply here.

Alypius

1:31 AM

@TRiG MLK's refusal to be hushed up is not the same as insisting on using language that's needlessly offensive. Talk all you want, but be nice to your opponent. A person doesn't need to swear and call people names to be heard.

@TRiG 1 billion Catholics, and a fair number of them run institutions affiliated with the Church. Probably, bad things are happening even now. I'd like to see another institution last for about 2000 years, while exercising spiritual governance over a population on par with China, but distributed across the entire planet.

@TRiG And marriage... I get the impression that people who are pro-gay on this miss the point made by others, just as some religious people totally fail to get how evolution works, and just as "rational" atheists totally fail to get how religious justification works

wax eagle

@TRiG hamhanded in the sense that we don't attempt to define it beyond "if you claim it." But you're right it does fit nicely from an external perspective. It's the internal perspective that makes it hamhanded :)

Alypius

1:47 AM

@TRiG There are certain special things about humans. Music, singing, dancing. A certain lifespan with certain stages. They can read, reason, and speak. They also reproduce. That last one is a huge deal. It's about bringing more people into the world. There's a certain sacred ground around marriage. Humans have spent thousands and thousands of years being married to each other and having tons of kids. That's a thing for us.

Peter Turner

@TRiG I'd imagine that in your Irishness you'd know more about it than I, but I've heard that whole "Catholic Church had slaves things" has been be debunked. blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/brendanoneill2/100202781/…

@Alypius I've ran across a couple closet Nestorians here, but they usually leave comments. Usually something like, "I agree with everything you and the Catholic Church says, except the part about Mary".

But since you didn't mention Our Lady in your post, there's not a lot to go off of. I don't usually get comments on downvotes unless I've laid some flamebait.

(which I don't suggest doing)

Alypius

@PeterTurner Right. Yeah, I'm just using the comments to suggest that an anti-Christian conspiracy is responsible for the downvotes. I don't actually know what's going on there. None of the other answers make sense to me, and the top one seems to actually border on endorsing a Nestorian view of Jesus.

TRiG

2:14 AM

Yoiks. That was a lot of responses. See ye in the morning.

Alypius

@TRiG Peace.

fredsbend

3:46 AM

@TRiG Why is the state involved in marriage at all? That is my question. It is a religious ceremony and should stay that way. We already have a way for any number of persons to share assets and liabilities. It is called an LLC.

0

Q: Did the Roman Catholic Church have slaves in Ireland in 1996?

This article covers the topic well, but is more about the Irish government admitting collusion with the supposed slave holders. What are the facts behind this? How many persons were really held as slaves, if any, and what was their treatment like?

Let's see if those goons over at skeptics can get to the bottom of this.

El'endia Starman

8:42 AM

@TRiG. Look.

wax eagle

10:33 AM

@fredsbend ummm no. The state grants very specific privileges and protections to married couples. (family insurance, ability to see loved ones in hospital, automatic granting of estates, life insurances and other items, social security benefits (US), extra tax incentives). These are the kinds of things that folks who cannot get married lose out on.

Married is as much a legal status now as it is a religious thing.

TRiG

10:58 AM

@El'endiaStarman More amusing are the various comments which seem to think that's serious.

@fredsbend Favourited that question @ Skeptics. Shall be watching it with interest.

wax eagle

12:52 PM

@El'endiaStarman epic math troll:

Assume r' refers to the radius of Earth Prime, and r'' means radius in inches.

Peter Turner

1:44 PM

@waxeagle My new opinion is, if marriage laws are unconstitutional, don't change marriage, abolish unconstitutional laws!

wax eagle

@PeterTurner that's one way to do it :)

El'endia Starman

3:05 PM

@waxeagle I actually shared that on Facebook last night, and yes, I love this comic. It's one of the top xkcd comics for me now. :D

wax eagle

@El'endiaStarman thought you would like it. I immediately thought of you when I saw it :)

El'endia Starman

3:24 PM

On the subject of marriage laws, my personal favorite solution is to keep marriage the same - one man, one woman...AND institute civil unions, which would have the same benefits of marriage, except that they would allow for gay marriage. Plus, marriage would be a religious institution and civil unions would be governmental institutions.

TRiG

3:35 PM

@El'endiaStarman Pour quoi?

El'endia Starman

@TRiG Of course you would already have a response to that. [reads]

One reason to argue for new kinds of civil unions versus redefining marriage is feasibility. Last year, my home state (North Carolina) put into law its first ever constitutional amendment, and that was to define marriage as between one man and one woman. The vote itself passed with a 61%-39% split.

wax eagle

and the supreme court is going to be very hard pressed to rule in a way that overrules state constitutions.

TRiG

@El'endiaStarman The NC ammendment was worse than that: it was vicious and vindictive (and most people, when it was properly explained to them, opposed it: it passed because of deliberate muddying of the waters by professinal bigots).

El'endia Starman

@TRiG My dad and I are both against gay marriage at least somewhat, but we also both agree that the NC amendment was an awful, terrible idea.

My dad directly said that it was divisive and nothing else.

TRiG

in The DMZ, 3 hours ago, by Polynomial

then he was talking to me about my new job and kept double-checking that "penetration tester" didn't mean something weird and creepy

@El'endiaStarman Yeah. I wasn't really following it at the time, but I read some of the analysis afterwards.

El'endia Starman

3:47 PM

@TRiG Bahaha. A friend of mine and I were talking about Asperger's Syndrome a few days ago, and I asked him what the penetration of the condition was.

wax eagle

This was a cool story this morning: npr.org/blogs/health/2013/03/11/173816690/…

El'endia Starman

@waxeagle Reading . . . oh, I have to go put on my processors now? Okay...

wax eagle

@El'endiaStarman the audio is worth it, specially if you're prone to emotion

El'endia Starman

@waxeagle I had to get up and change anyway. Also, holy cow, it's 58 degrees F in Rochester!

wax eagle

@El'endiaStarman that's about what it is here

El'endia Starman

4:01 PM

@waxeagle Wow, that really is cool.

wax eagle

@El'endiaStarman definitely. @TRiG that's one you'd be interested in too I think

El'endia Starman

@waxeagle AUGH. The sound sample volumes were too low. >_<

wax eagle

@El'endiaStarman :(

El'endia Starman

@waxeagle I was able to hear them pretty well at full volume (whereas I usually play videos at 30% computer volume). I simply forgot to turn the volume down after that...

TRiG

4:57 PM

@waxeagle I'll try to remember to check it when I get home.

Jon Ericson

5:28 PM

@Caleb Looking at it, I think the problem is actually that the question is not terribly specific. I like questions about oddball beliefs, but this question seemed to about a fairly common belief. It sounds at least somewhat like complementarianism. Perhaps a better comment would have been to ask for more details.

fredsbend

7:08 PM

@waxeagle Those items have only come from the state getting involved in the first place. One intervention has led to another and to another and is not going to stop because now gay couples want the same whatevers. Auto estate granting is easily resolved with LLC, as is any asset transfer.

Life insurance considers your marriage whether it is legal or not, plus those terms are not govt controlled. Insurance is a private industry. SS benefits are the same whether married or not. In fact you illuminate the issue where a married couple receive benefits, one each, then one dies and the remaining person is left with half the benefits.

That is the reality now. Tax incentives are largely outweighed by the hidden tax punishments. Financial aid is the first to come to mind. You make more income as a couple then a single person typically, therefore, you are given less benefits of all kinds. Medicaid stands out too. The argument from the gay perspective is more about the populace admitting gay marriage is moral rather than about societal benefits, which are actually few when weighed out.

wax eagle

@fredsbend see SS death benefit.

fredsbend

@PeterTurner No kidding. "Abolishing unconstitutional laws? But that means we would have less control over your lives," says those jerks in office.

wax eagle

@fredsbend lol financial aid for married students >> single students (don't have to factor your parents)

fredsbend

@waxeagle Not sure what you are saying. Here is what I mean. I have two friends that make about the same and their ladies work and add money to the family. I and the ladies are going to school. They get almost double the financial aid because they are not 'legally' married and I am.

Plus I think there are more benefits for students from single parent families. Never mind mom and dad are basically married but not legally.

@waxeagle ssa.gov/pubs/10008.html One time payment of $250 is not that big a deal. Then the monthlies they might pay out are still less than what your spouse was receiving. Either way the surviving take a serious cut in income.

For both the gay and straight.

What if they are straight but room mates or brothers that depend on each other? Just trying to show that SS is way messed up in being fair even now.

Caleb

9:51 PM

@fredsbend I just deleted the latter half of your recent comment on my post. Your surmise about Ali's suspension was incorrect. As many issues as we have had, there is no sense in accusing him of things he didn't do. His comment is misleading because he's speaking a second language. It wasn't his "votes were robbed" so much as he lost his down-voting privilege because he dropped below the rep limit needed for that.

fredsbend

10:14 PM

@Caleb Ok. That's fine with me. I'm thinking if Ali comes back after the suspension and does the same antics I am not going to play ball. I will just down vote, vote to close and move on.

2

Q: What is the biblical basis for considering gender to be purely physical/biological?

In my other question, I asked what the biblical basis was for considering gender to not be merely physical, but also present in a person's soul and/or spirit. However, there are some who believe that gender is purely physical, so it seems necessary to ask that question as well. So, what is th...

biblical-basis doctrine nature-of-man gender

Anybody want a go at this one?

Caleb

@fredsbend He pretty much goes wherever he gets a rise out of folks, so in some senses it would be easier if that's all people did. We did give him lots of changes to improve and carefully explained the site guidelines multiple different ways. It's up to him to decide if he wants to play along or not.

We are a niche site not a free for all and the local norms may not be for everybody

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