Is there such a thing as too much freedom of religion?

[_Zoidberg]

This all sounds great in theory - freedom of religion, the right of free speech, etc., but define harm. Isn't saying that homosexuality stems from selfishness/perversion/Satan around a 14-year old with "same-gender attractions" harmful? That could very easily be construed as emotional abuse, as well.

Let me be blunt: I don't think people's feelings Trump the right to freedom of speech.

However, with that right, I think it is also important to grant people the right not to hear that kind of harassing speech. That is while some people should have the right to shout their ideas, they should not have the right to invade homes or businesses with their ludicrous rants.

Call me names, or tell me what a jerk I am, but just don't force me to listen to it. So long as that's the case, I don't think anyone can properly call it emotional abuse. People should be free to be rotten to each other, but they should be just as free to avoid it. And of course I recommend they don't be rotten to each other.

Now this is indeed trickier with 14-year olds because they aren't as able to freely walk away from annoying speech, especially if it comes from parents. Even trickier is that indoctrinting children seems to be a normal part of raising them. Is it wrong when we indoctrinate children to think that incest is wrong? Keep in mind that we allow people with known genetic defects to marry and reproduce. What if that child really does love his/her sibbling? Is it emotional abuse to tell him/her it's wrong? Why then do we not teach children with severe genetic defects that it'd be wrong for them to marry and create more kids who have to suffer as they do?

It seems to me that society's standards are somewhat arbitrary in what we think should be permissible indoctrination of children and what shouldn't be. I'm not recommending that we should therefore allow everyone to indoctrinate children as they wish, but I do wish to draw attention to how difficult the situation truly is.

My banning on MAD, among other things, prevented me from talking more about incest; you actually don't need to indoctrinate children for them to have an aversion to incest in most cases. People who were raised in close domestic proximity to someone tend to feel extremely little to no sexual attraction to them. This is known as the Westermarck effect. Freud liked to think otherwise, but he was a completely messed up individual who based his conclusion about human psychology on his own messed up self.

I don't want you to publicly answer any of the following questions, I just want you to think about them. Do you have any brothers or sisters? If so, is indoctrination the only thing preventing you from pursuing a sexual relationship with one of them? At what age did you learn about incest and that you are not supposed to engage in it? If it was after you hit puberty, did you actually feel attracted to one of your siblings before you were indoctrinated about the evils of incest?

There are individuals who genetically do not have an aversion to incest. From an evolutionary standpoint, the genes of people who do feel an aversion to incest are more likely to be passed on because they won't mate with their close relatives, thus reducing the risk of genetic abnormalities in their offspring. On the other hand, there are cases in which two people meet as adults, fall in love and then find out that they are siblings. The Westermarck effect did not occur there because they were not raised together; so unless their parents know something they don't, the parents aren't likely to indoctrinate the couple that their relationship is wrong, so no abuse there.

But we have trumped natural selection and people who wouldn't survive and be able to pass their genes down without the benefits of modern medicine/technology now live long and productive lives and are able to reproduce (although it might not always be a good idea). France has abolished all laws against consensual adult incest some 200 years ago, and what do you know - they haven't turned into inbred imbeciles yet. That's because an extreme minority of people actually feel sexually attracted to their close relatives, let alone want to have children with them.

So if a child feels attracted to their sibling (a particular individual, mind you, not some kind of a sexual orientation where they are attracted exclusively to close relatives), there are several issues that arise: it might not be mutual; abstinence in childhood is probably a good idea no matter who you are attracted to; I just don't see parents bringing it up and actively indoctrinating children about the evils of incest unless they notice something's going on. On the other hand, gay kids usually hear condemnation of homosexuality from various sources before anyone knows they are gay.

[_guy sajer]

Not this one. But I do expect immunity from strawman arguments and all other forms of yellow journalism and logical fallacies.....and lazy research too.

Oh geez, get off the lazy research high horse already. This is an internet discussion board where people argue, mostly, opinions. It is not a scholarly forum. People who participate here have jobs and other time demands that make it impractical to spend hours doing exhaustive research on issues just to satisfy self annointed research experts like yourself.

My guess is that if we dissected each of your "thoroughly researched arguments" we'd find lots and lots of holes. I do research all the time as part of my job, and I've published lots of scholarly articles, and it takes literally days and days to thoroughly research most any topic, then it takes days and days afterwards to digest what you find, organize it, and synthesize it. From start to finish, doing thorough research on a topic takes weeks or months. I am guessing you don't do this, do you? And even then, those who go through this process often reach very different conclusions about what the evidence means.

You wield the lazy research accusation like a cudgel; for you, it serves a similar purpose as someone who claims special revelation--as an argument stopping Trump card. I supsect most of us, however, see through this transparent rhetorical ruse.

Can we just all concede that no one does "thorough" research on all topics discussed on this internet forum? Can we concede that this is largely an opinion forum and not a scholarly forum? Can we finally dispense with this canard?

Put the damn cudgel down, it's grown really wearisome.

[_Zoidberg]

Not this one. But I do expect immunity from strawman arguments and all other forms of yellow journalism and logical fallacies.....and lazy research too.

Oh geez, get off the lazy research high horse already. This is an internet discussion board where people argue, mostly, opinions. It is not a scholarly forum. People who participate here have jobs and other time demands that make it impractical to spend hours doing exhaustive research on issues just to satisfy self annointed research experts like yourself.

My guess is that if we dissected each of your "thoroughly researched arguments" we'd find lots and lots of holes. I do research all the time as part of my job, and I've published lots of scholarly articles, and it takes literally days and days to thoroughly research most any topic, then it takes days and days afterwards to digest what you find, organize it, and synthesize it. From start to finish, doing thorough research on a topic takes weeks or months. I am guessing you don't do this, do you? And even then, those who go through this process often reach very different conclusions about what the evidence means.

You wield the lazy research accusation like a cudgel; for you, it serves a similar purpose as someone who claims special revelation--as an argument stopping Trump card. I supsect most of us, however, see through this transparent rhetorical ruse.

Can we just all concede that no one does "thorough" research on all topics discussed on this internet forum? Can we concede that this is largely an opinion forum and not a scholarly forum? Can we finally dispense with this canard?

Put the damn cudgel down, it's grown really wearisome.

Yeah, I don't really know how this is relevant to the topic of discussion at hand since bcspace claims his comments are not targeted personally at me, so I didn't bother to respond. But he really isn't the one to be talking about strawmen, yellow journalism and lazy research. Adopting Hugh Nibley's technique in citing references isn't going to impress anyone, sorry, bcspace.

[_Some Schmo]

Not this one. But I do expect immunity from strawman arguments and all other forms of yellow journalism and logical fallacies.....and lazy research too.

Oh geez, get off the lazy research high horse already. This is an internet discussion board where people argue, mostly, opinions. It is not a scholarly forum. People who participate here have jobs and other time demands that make it impractical to spend hours doing exhaustive research on issues just to satisfy self annointed research experts like yourself.

My guess is that if we dissected each of your "thoroughly researched arguments" we'd find lots and lots of holes. I do research all the time as part of my job, and I've published lots of scholarly articles, and it takes literally days and days to thoroughly research most any topic, then it takes days and days afterwards to digest what you find, organize it, and synthesize it. From start to finish, doing thorough research on a topic takes weeks or months. I am guessing you don't do this, do you? And even then, those who go through this process often reach very different conclusions about what the evidence means.

You wield the lazy research accusation like a cudgel; for you, it serves a similar purpose as someone who claims special revelation--as an argument stopping Trump card. I supsect most of us, however, see through this transparent rhetorical ruse.

Can we just all concede that no one does "thorough" research on all topics discussed on this internet forum? Can we concede that this is largely an opinion forum and not a scholarly forum? Can we finally dispense with this canard?

Put the damn cudgel down, it's grown really wearisome.

Wait a second... if he does this, he may actually have to answer a direct question, or actually address the topic at hand, and we can't have that! He'd rather accuse others of lazy research rather than admit his own lazy thinking.

[_asbestosman]

My banning on MAD, among other things, prevented me from talking more about incest;

Like I said earlier, I wanted a chance for some fun with you.

you actually don't need to indoctrinate children for them to have an aversion to incest in most cases.

Dare I say that the same holds for homosexuality. I recognize there are some differences too and I intend to get there as well. Keep in mind though that in liberal countries that accept gay marriage such as The Netherlands, call someone a homosexual is still used as an insult although perhaps a milder one than before.

I don't want you to publicly answer any of the following questions, I just want you to think about them. Do you have any brothers or sisters? If so, is indoctrination the only thing preventing you from pursuing a sexual relationship with one of them? At what age did you learn about incest and that you are not supposed to engage in it? If it was after you hit puberty, did you actually feel attracted to one of your siblings before you were indoctrinated about the evils of incest?

I know I'm not supposed to answer, but let's just make it clear that I'm heterosexual, and all my sibblings are boys like me. Obviously no Westermark effect would be observable in me at least with regard to my sibblings. Anyhow, I'll grant that the aversion to incest is natural and fairly universal. That's one reason I brought it up. In fact sexual aversions are fairly common, but I will spare you talk of pedophilia as I do not wish to conflate it with homosexuality. In fact I consider them all separate, but dammage has been done in the past by some people conflating the two. They are different anyhow in that kids themselves are too young to be considered pedophiles until they come of age. Other sexual attraction can still begin while they are teenagers, but minors.

So if a child feels attracted to their sibling (a particular individual, mind you, not some kind of a sexual orientation where they are attracted exclusively to close relatives), there are several issues that arise: it might not be mutual; abstinence in childhood is probably a good idea no matter who you are attracted to; I just don't see parents bringing it up and actively indoctrinating children about the evils of incest unless they notice something's going on. On the other hand, gay kids usually hear condemnation of homosexuality from various sources before anyone knows they are gay.

I'm not so sure. Most people are born with an aversion to homosexuality too. I just think that homosexuality happens to be more common especially since one who experiences incestuous attraction usually experiences attraction for others too. Such is not the case for homosexuality.

There are other societal taboos. Take beastiality (I know that homosexualty is not beastiality nor incest, nor pedophilia). We prohibit it, but do we do it for logical reasons? What if a kid really has such a fetish? What if he really loves animals in that way. Well, you may say, that's just cruel behavior for animals who cannot consent. I'll grant that, but do animals consent to us murdering them for food? How about consent to performing biological experiments on them in the hopes of improving humankind with little to no benefit to that animal's species? Now it's true that primates are being used less and less, but we do a lot of experiments on mice. Is it really right for us to say we can give them cancer, but we won't allow beastiality because they can't consent?

What of necrophilia? What if the person wrote in his will that he would allow his corpse to be used in such a way? Would it still be wrong? I'll grant that there is a natural aversion to corpses, but there are some people who have it. Is it abusive to tell children that it's wrong?

What about other fetishes? Bondage? Infantalism (which apparently begins before puberty much like homosexuality)? Shoe fetishes? Blow up dolls (maybe in the shape of animals, or what if in the shape of children--perhaps built from baby pictures of a current adult who has given consent). Is it wrong to teach kids to avoid it? Is it wrong that adults ridicule adults who do some of those things?

How about other strange arrangements like 3-sums, or voluntary adult-only polygamy in general? Why would it be wrong to preach against that? I think it is natural for men to desire many sexual partners. Is it abusive for people to indoctrinate their children for fidelity within the bounds of monoagamy (possibly allowing the same of homosexual monogamy too)?

Is it wrong for us to indoctrinate children into thinking that marrying someone far older / younger than you is wrong? I grant that this too is changing, but it still turns heads and probably always will.

Is it wrong for vegans to indoctrinate children into abstaining from meat? What if the kid loves meat? Peharps the kid had some once before her parents converted into vegans. Why would sexial appetites be more important than food appetites?

If a child is naturally lazy, is it wrong to criticize him for it? What if he loves donut and chips while spending all day watching TV. Would it be wrong to make him feel so bad about it that he gets off his butt and exercises in a while and maybe cuts down on the junkfood? If it is permissible, why so? Just because it's for his own good? Why shouldn't the kid decide for himself? IF it's because it puts a strain on society with health costs, then what about all the other strains we permit such as smoking or drinking?

[_Zoidberg]

Dare I say that the same holds for homosexuality. I recognize there are some differences too and I intend to get there as well. Keep in mind though that in liberal countries that accept gay marriage such as The Netherlands, call someone a homosexual is still used as an insult although perhaps a milder one than before.

Unless the person is actually a homosexual. Comparing people with multiple partners to Mormons is not that uncommon, either.

I'm not so sure. Most people are born with an aversion to homosexuality too.

As I have already pointed out, the instinctive aversion is not to having sex with one's biological siblings, but to having sex with persons who the child was cohabiting with in his/her early life. It is a mechanism aimed at excluding a group of people from the mating pool. Homosexuality, on the other hand, is substituting the "traditional" mating pool of people of the same sex for people of the opposite sex. Bisexuality is adding to the "traditional" mating pool.

So I don't agree with your statement that most people are born with an aversion to homosexuality. Most people just aren't homosexual. It's like saying that most people are born with an aversion to being left-handed.

I just think that homosexuality happens to be more common especially since one who experiences incestuous attraction usually experiences attraction for others too. Such is not the case for homosexuality.

This is where you are right.

As for the other taboos you've mentioned, a lot of it is very reasonable observations. However, do you seriously think that parents or church leaders are actively indoctrinating children about bestiality? (how many children found out what bestiality is from their parents? not me!) Or necrophilia? Or bondage or fetishes, for that matter?

A lot of these restrictions are arbitrary, as you have correctly pointed out. If you consider consent a value, then it is okay to teach children that they should abstain from using force or coercion on people/animals. This may include eating meat or using animals in research. On the other hand, if only human consent is a value, then things done to animals are a non-issue.

Parents are also their children's guardians and are supposed to look out for the best interests of the child because the child is not always able to properly assess the consequences of their behavior (as generally accepted by society). Some of these best interests are outlined by the state; in other cases, it's left at the parents' discretion. So, in this model, parents have the right to ask their child to abstain from homosexual activity or to exercise and eat less junk food while in their custody. Calling a child a pervert or a fat slob (or traumatizing them in general) is emotional abuse, on the other hand.

Of course, it is impossible to completely avoid causing harm, or what others perceive as harm, to them. As Richard Bach put it in Illusions:

"He was going to suck my blood!"

"Which is what we do to anyone when we tell them that we'll be hurt if they don't live our way."

What pisses me off about the issue in the OP, however, is the hypocrisy and inconsistency of protecting religious freedom more than any other ideology.

Telling your theist child that only a moron would believe in a supreme being is emotional abuse, as well, IMHO.

[_asbestosman]

As for the other taboos you've mentioned, a lot of it is very reasonable observations. However, do you seriously think that parents or church leaders are actively indoctrinating children about bestiality? (how many children found out what bestiality is from their parents? not me!) Or necrophilia? Or bondage or fetishes, for that matter?

Depends on the age. My parents certainly made it clear to me that those things were considered wicked perversions, although I cannot recall precisely when. I was probably a young teenager though.

So, in this model, parents have the right to ask their child to abstain from homosexual activity or to exercise and eat less junk food while in their custody. Calling a child a pervert or a fat slob (or traumatizing them in general) is emotional abuse, on the other hand.

Seems reasonable to me. Granted there are some gray areas. Sometimes we can go too far in trying to motivate a kid to get off his rear. Other times I think we don't do enough.

Of course, it is impossible to completely avoid causing harm, or what others perceive as harm, to them. As Richard Bach put it in Illusions:

"He was going to suck my blood!"

"Which is what we do to anyone when we tell them that we'll be hurt if they don't live our way."

So true, which is why I don't think hurt feelings are enough to Trump free speech. Raising children is especially tricky though as it appears we both agree.

What pisses me off about the issue in the OP, however, is the hypocrisy and inconsistency of protecting religious freedom more than any other ideology.

I think it's often proclaimed as tantamount, but in reality I think most people are happy to infringe on religious freedom when granting religious freedom to someone to commit crimes will somehow infringe on their freedoms. I don't think many people would really use religous freedom to excuse child abuse. Remember the Satanic-Ritual Abuse hysteria of a couple decades ago? Seems people weren't willing to let those alleged things go under the guise of religious freedom.

I think people are more looking to protect the status quo, at least when the status quo is in their favor.

Telling your theist child that only a moron would believe in a supreme being is emotional abuse, as well, IMHO.

You might be right, but I'm not sure that such emotional abuse would or should necessarily be criminal. Heck, even telling a kid he's a fool for believing that 2+2 = 5 or the Earth is flat or Santa lives in the North Pole would probably be emotional abuse. It might depend on how far you take criticising the kid.

[_Zoidberg]

Depends on the age. My parents certainly made it clear to me that those things were considered wicked perversions, although I cannot recall precisely when. I was probably a young teenager though.

I dare assume that you weren't feeling particularly compelled to pursue a romantic relationship with your dog Snoopy when they brought it up, so you probably weren't traumatized by their words.:)

I think it's often proclaimed as tantamount, but in reality I think most people are happy to infringe on religious freedom when granting religious freedom to someone to commit crimes will somehow infringe on their freedoms. I don't think many people would really use religous freedom to excuse child abuse. Remember the Satanic-Ritual Abuse hysteria of a couple decades ago? Seems people weren't willing to let those alleged things go under the guise of religious freedom.

Some things are trickier than others. Hitchens cites an example of a Jewish sect in which an infant's circumcision involves a clergyman's mouth to the baby's genitalia. Several children got STDs as a result of that. In any other context, it would be considered child sexual abuse. But not this one.

I think people are more looking to protect the status quo, at least when the status quo is in their favor.

You are probably right; favoring tradition over reason is yet another thing that bothers me about humans.

You might be right, but I'm not sure that such emotional abuse would or should necessarily be criminal. Heck, even telling a kid he's a fool for believing that 2+2 = 5 or the Earth is flat or Santa lives in the North Pole would probably be emotional abuse. It might depend on how far you take criticising the kid.

Emotional abuse is very difficult to prove and not really prosecuted by itself. In a way, I agree with you. I'm very much for free speech, as well. But insinuating that your kid's intellect is lacking is probably not a very nice thing to do either way.