The Culture War

I'd like to enter this discussion by making two potentially offensive, and extremely biased comments.

1) Bill O'Reilley is an ass.

2) 'Liberalism,' in the modern American vocabulary, doesn't mean anything.

Glad I got that off my chest. To clarify my statements, Bill O'Reilley is one of the most biased 'reporters' I've ever met. So is Lou Dobbs; all media has an agenda, which is a damn shame. 'News' should merely be the reporting of an event- not the interperation of the event. That should be left up to the public. Irresponsible 'news reporting' (in both 'sides' of the media) intereperets the events, thereby making pretty much all sources spurious. I seem to be haunted by the words of Joseph Pulitzer when I think about the media today:

"You give me a story, I'll give you a war."
-J. Pulitzer

As per 'Liberalism': In America, Liberalism can mean anything the espouser of said belief wants it to mean. Their is no commonly accepted definition of the term; it exist in our vocabulary at the same level as other slang words- everybody says it, but nobody has any idea of what it actually means (kind of like a disambiguation of 'gnarly'). I can call myself a 'liberal' if I support marriage rights for humans and animals; conversely, I can call myself a liberal and be anti-abortion. The term has no consistency, and cannot be accurately correlated with any particular set of political beliefs.

Pertaining to the 'Culture War': Every generation experiences it's own culture war. The elements of change in a society are always posed at odds with the traditionalists who want to see things stay the same. However, in our society, I believe change is coming too quickly for us to process it, or to count the costs or consequences. This is where the traditionalist element needs to step up. Our societal landscape becomes entirely different just about every ten years. We're making changes without allowing the necessary debates to take place to see what sort of changes are societally viable or acceptable, and what sort of things should be left by the wayside on the road of 'progress.' Societies need change; stagnation is the same as death- but unrestricted change and progress push the 'liberal' elements even further away from their traditionalist countrymen, and foster suspicion, hate, and mutual exclusion (all of which are disastrous for the survival of the society as a whole). So, in summation, change is necessary, but it needs to happen at a manageable rate, else the society pulls it apart at the seams, resulting in the 'culture war' that Mr. O'Reilley preaches.

There is a serious split in American culture, because the 'liberal' elements of change refuse to wait long enough for the rest of the country to catch up and accept their value systems. A happy medium between the results of change and the retention of traditional values needs to be found between the two parties, or we'll have something like the 60's again. Some people may see that as good, but I don't think it's ever good when the Army is set against the populace. Mutual respect and mutual understanding are going to be needed for these issues to resolve themselves.

As Aristotle said, "Moderation is Wisdom."

Cheers.

Originally posted by Emperor Barbarossa Originally posted by Ponce de Leon Originally posted by SearchAndDestroy I thought it was Ben Franklin who made sure the word God was taken out of the constitution during the editing of it. And wasn't one of the most influencial founding fathers, James Madison a huge advocate of Seperation of Church and State and is said to believe that Religion shouldn't be apart of the political process? So they may have been Christian, but they also made sure it didn't leak into our countries politics except for influences that allow freedoms and fairness for the people. and that i completely agree with. of course there has to be seperation of church and state. but we must not forget the values on which our freedoms are based upon But, that does not mean that we should act like religion has a large part in our political process. Morals are morals. Religion does not own those morals.

I do not believe that statement. I believe that morals are a consequence of religious beliefs. If we go back and learn about other people's cultures their moral beliefs are based upon what their religion tells them to do. Our society is no differnt whether being quaker, calvanist, evangelical, catholic, or even agnostic. Again I believe in the seperation of church and state, but we still have a religious background whether you want to believe it or not, but that is what gives us our freedoms and that is what makes us American

Originally posted by SearchAndDestroy I thought it was Ben Franklin who made sure the word God was taken out of the constitution during the editing of it. And wasn't one of the most influencial founding fathers, James Madison a huge advocate of Seperation of Church and State and is said to believe that Religion shouldn't be apart of the political process? So they may have been Christian, but they also made sure it didn't leak into our countries politics except for influences that allow freedoms and fairness for the people.

and that i completely agree with. of course there has to be seperation of church and state. but we must not forget the values on which our freedoms are based upon

Ponce, you are misinterpreting red clay's response. He said that each of the others voted out the prayer before ceremony, and that includes Washington, no matter what irrelevant quote you can pull out.

wow, Ponce de Leon, in these times of political correctness and ignorance, you are a brave one to venture upon such a topic.

morals and language. you ask an american why we use a word in english. does he know the etymology? i doubt it. without out knowing the etymology of the word, it can be hard to discern what word is most appropriate when we have more than one choice; often we go off context or personal preference, but that's not the logical manner. and so with morals. morals, like language, are something we have inherited through generations and generations of experimentation, innovation, and use. like language, they define us personally and socially, control us, and shape us, and give us an outlet for our expression. you can carry on this metaphor as long as you like.

My point is people would like to think they can moralize without knowing the backdrop and reason for morality and particular morals.

Take marriage. someone claimed it was a religious, or a Christian institution. someone claimed Ponce was "close-minded" about his definition of marriage.

what do these people know about morals (theoretically)? if they dared to actually study the things they are attacking, say tradition and religion, they'd know that 1. marriage is a long-standing, pre-Christian human institution, which 2. Christianity recognizes as good. (for instance, human sacrifice is an institution that Christianity considers bad.)

i think the "close-minded" ones are those who throw around weighted words accusingly without actually focusing on the reasoning of the discussion.


Edited by The_Jackal_God - 24-Feb-2007 at 00:32

So you see, gentlemen, we are all disobeying the Biblical command to commit incest

Not all of us, as Appalachia suggests......

Oh I understand that. It's kinda funny, as I type this out a show tonight is about polygamy.

Why would polygamy hurt the children? Surely a divorce and remarriage hurt the children enormously more. Polygamy can increase the living conditions of the family, many hands make light work. Having said that, I fully believe that an additional wife should only be taken with the consent of the existing ones, and polygamy should be limited (... to four).

Then I guess nothing would be wrong. I just always read that the children are going to be effected in a negitive way in this kind of enviroment. But I also haven't read up on it as it never really interested me enough to study the history of these kind of marriages.

Shariah Law

Why would polygamy hurt the children? Surely a divorce and remarriage hurt the children enormously more. Polygamy can increase the living conditions of the family, many hands make light work.

Having said that, I fully believe that an additional wife should only be taken with the consent of the existing ones, and polygamy should be limited (... to four).