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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 4, 2023

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I think pedophilia is bad because kids are not adults and adults should shield children from sin by showing them what is right and what is wrong and by keeping them away from situations in which they would not be able to make good decisions.

If God said that sex isn't actually sinful, that was a misunderstanding, or was obviated by the new covenant: Would you no longer have any objections to pedophilia, or would you still think it was bad for other reasons?

My guess is you would still have objections, those remaining objections are your real reason for being against it, and you share those reasons with the people you're interrogating.

But maybe I'm wrong, let me know.

(note, this goes back to Penn Jillette's line about atheism and morality - religious people ask him why, if he doesn't believe in God, he doesn't go around raping and murdering anyone he wants. His response is 'I've already raped and murdered as much as I want to, which is zero, and if the only thing holding you back from that is your belief in God then please stay away from my family.'

I don't think that is the only thing stopping religious people from doing horrible things, I think their rhetorical reason is God but their actual proximal reasons are more about preventing harm and respecting autonomy and being a good person and so forth, same as everyone else)

If God said that sex isn't actually sinful, that was a misunderstanding

God doesn't say sex is sinful, as long as it's in the right context.

Would you no longer have any objections to pedophilia, or would you still think it was bad for other reasons?

I think that there are people who argue that God says things like that, and I do not listen to these people. The scriptures and tradition I choose to believe in are the ones that are congruent with my vision of what is true and right.

His response is 'I've already raped and murdered as much as I want to, which is zero, and if the only thing holding you back from that is your belief in God then please stay away from my family.'

Does he count abortion as murder? Does murder by proxy count? Would voting for abortion (or say, bombing Gaza) count?

Would any woman be able to #MeToo him (does he follow the Pence rule?) or is he the only judge of what counts as rape or what doesn't?

What about sterilizing people? Is that something wrong in the eyes of Jillette? Progressives get a lot of people sterilized these days, and they claim that it's all consensual and good, but it seems debatable to some.

I think their rhetorical reason is God but their actual proximal reasons are more about preventing harm and respecting autonomy and being a good person and so forth, same as everyone else)

Well there are wild disagreements on whether killing an unborn baby is murder or not, or whether sterilizing teenagers or MAID are a good idea, etc. One could also argue that Christians also believe that spiritual life is more important than the world, so avoiding offending God is more important than avoiding physical harm (ie hypothetically dying of hunger is better than taking the only available job at the abortion clinic, or more commonly, refusing to engage in sinful urges is better than enthusiastically embracing your 'LGBT identity').