Common bruv it's just a poem, we wouldn't go through all the hassle of stealing — Agustino

LOL Why hide it? — Agustino

People steal.

Do you mind sharing the poem? — Agustino

Yes, so no.

This has reminded me of a poem I had written a long time ago. Thanks (Y)

Obviously rape and child molestation are wrong. — Michael

Glad we agree here! O:)

My statement was with reference to those who argue that chastity and/or monogamy are more virtuous that casual sex. — Michael

Well, I'd probably argue that. How might I be wrong?

Virtue has nothing to do with how good you are refraining from legal, consensual, adult sex. — Michael

Mmm, virtue has everything to do with how badly one has failed to refrain from having sex.

And it also has nothing to do with how good you are at keeping your penis away from this or that crevasse (or vice versa). — Michael

Unless I don't understand your point, I'm not in agreement. If you can't keep your penis away from someone, let's say like a Catholic priest in relation with an altar boy, then this shows that the priest had no character to begin with. Similarly, if someone lies in the face of his thinking that he is honest, then he was never and is not honest, otherwise he wouldn't have lied.

You're saying that many people want to avoid intimacy, therefore sex is a requirement in modern relationships? — jamalrob

Often it is, yes. Not always, though.

Do you mean sexual or romantic relationships? — jamalrob

All sexual relationships are romantic, but not all romantic relationships are sexual.

I'm pretty sure that sex has been essential to a very large portion of human relationships for a very long time. — jamalrob

For procreation, yes, but not so much for mere copulation's sake.

And you assume, without any justification, that sex is not a part of being intimate with someone, but is rather a way of avoiding intimacy. — jamalrob

I never made any such assumption.

I'm open to the idea that there might be a new and increasingly widespread way of relating to people sexually that excludes intimacy--a kind of relationship that we might call pornographical, both because it is primarily objectifying and also because pornography increasingly shapes our sexualities--but this is a long way from saying that sex per se is an avoidance of intimacy. — jamalrob

Again, where have I argued that sex in itself is an act of explicit avoidance of intimacy?

This is simply not credible. Do you think that when divorce was taboo and women were subjected to the authority of the husband, "true intimacy" flourished? Do you think that when marriage was more openly and uncontroversially about property and status, couples really got to know each other? Do you not realize that it's only recently that romantic love has become the primary reason for getting married? — jamalrob

Intimacy was not the rationale for establishing marriages, historically. Yet, now that intimacy is touted as the goal for love and marriage and relationships in general, my point has been that this is all a facade, because few I've run into really care about true intimacy. They merely want x, y, and z, none of which being what facilitates real intimacy between two people.

This demonstrates prudishness and little else. You do realize that attentiveness, understanding, and compassion, along with gruff physicality, are often essential to good sex? — jamalrob

You do realize that virtue has nothing to do with how your penis feels when in this or that crevasse, right?

If it wasn't apparent, I was trying to show how intentions have little importance. — darthbarracuda

Trying and failing, yeah.

One can always characterize any situation to suit one's needs by invoking intentions here and there.

Truth undergirds intention. Merely because one might falsely claim good intention does not make intentions unimportant in themselves.

That's the lesson of consequentialism - the only thing that matters at the end is what's left over.

Consider yourself falsely accused of murdering someone, when in reality you merely acted in self-defense. Regardless of this fact, however, you have been sentenced to life in prison without parole. If you wanted to contest such a verdict, how ought you go about doing so? Ah, yes, through an appeal to good intention. Otherwise, you must accept the wrong done unto you simply on the grounds of "what's left over" - i.e., you killed someone, they're dead, and because you done did it, you're guilty, whether you intended to kill the intruder in your home, say, or not.

You didn't intend that they starve, but you did intend to ignore their plight.

Again, I ask why intentions have any importance here. — darthbarracuda

>:O >:O >:O

Dear God in Heaven, is this a philosophy forum or a cook-book message board?

Rather than people being OBSESSED with sex, I think people LONG FOR warmth and sharing (intimacy). — Bitter Crank

I'm not sold on this at all. Sex is often a requirement in modern relationships because most people, in my experience at least, are in fact mortified at the thought of having true intimacy with someone because it means that they must expose the worst in them, which forces them to expose themselves to themselves, as well, often for the first time. This is one reason why successful marriages in the West have rapidly deteriorated because spouses realize too late that they do not know who really is next to them when they go to bed each night. Modern relationships have gone about creating a culture that overemphasizes the gruff physicality of the body, and therefore of sex, as being the foundation for the growth of a relationship between two people. No one gives a hot damn about virtue, only whether you like fleshy dicks or plastic dicks, if you like it in the butt, in the mouth, or in the nose, whether you like black hair over blonde hair, tan skin instead of pale skin - honesty, though? Attentiveness, understanding, compassion? Meh.

Shouldn't have been hair on that head to start with, >:O

Shhh, we've already discussed this topic too much.

Is this the thread for horny and slightly balding single men?

No, you hug her as the dust bunnies snuggle with you.

Make her sit with you.

On the floor at her feet.

I said find, not find her and sit on her.

Not on my dick. Find your lady.

Yes. Judgement has been made, now sit down.

Which head did you nod with, Agu? O:)

I dunno, I just thought it a good distinction to make. Sex is a little too narrow a topic. Sexuality, though, includes sex, sexes, genders, sociology bullshit, etc. I'd definitely say that the West is obsessed with sexuality more than just sex.

Replace "sex" with "sexuality" in your title. Would you still agree that it's idolized or no?

Unfulfilled wants and desires cause suffering. — unenlightened

Just unfulfilled ones?

Ah, at long last this thread has finally come around.

People sitting with a laptop certainly look like they don't want to be disturbed - as in they want to be amongst people, and yet be far from them too. — Agustino

Jokes on you when you look at what they're doing and they're feverishly lurking TFP, 8-)

So, you're OK with bestiality then? — John

dafuq?

Do you intend to communicate by typing on a keyboard? If you do, then why do you intend to communicate? Because you think this is good. — Agustino

I don't think communication is a good in itself.

You don't OBSERVE right and wrong, you judge things to be right and wrong. You observe facts - for example the color of leaves of the tree out your window. — Agustino

Mere judgement does not objectively decide morality.

My judgement tells me. — Agustino

Which isn't always right.

Actually no, because the faculty of judgement =/ reason in the way I've been using it. Reason is the way we function - we do things for certain reasons. That's what rationality is - a creature is rational if it holds reasons for doing X and Y. — Agustino

We often judge based on reason, so what exactly are you trying to contest here?

Yep, we judge it to be wrong. But this isn't to say our judgements can be objective. — Agustino

So.....................?

If I judge it to be wrong, I clearly am not using reason to do it. — Agustino

How did you arrive at your judgement? Through reason. What else besides instinct would you be using?

Differences in judgement are not differences of reason. — Agustino

They sure can be.

Desire is innate and is not a choice, nor can it be eradicated — Emptyheady

Explain.

at best suppressed with some nasty unforeseen side effects. — Emptyheady

So a pedophile's innate desire cannot and should not be eradicated or suppressed because doing so will produce "nasty unforeseen side effects"?

This is why I think Buddhism is fundamentally mistaken and numbing yourself leads to alienation. — Emptyheady

Bruv, what'd the fat man ever do to you?

I believe in two personal virtues, ambition and discipline.

Do you like BDSM, by chance?

Hume was on the right track when he said: "Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them." — Emptyheady

Pedophiles rejoice! You can now fulfill your desirous passion for child flesh because who the fuck needs reason 'til after you done it?! :D

Pinker — Emptyheady

You type on a keyboard because you want to communicate, and you want to communicate because you see it as good no? — Agustino

I don't intend to do the good by typing on a keyboard, no. It's about as amoral an action you can get.

That's not a judgement but the observation of the way reason functions. — Agustino

Fine, it's my observation that you're wrong. We good, now?

Nope. They will think they're striving for the good, even while they're not - just like Casanova. — Agustino

How do you know that he's not?

Our faculties of judgement. — Agustino

The same faculties that brought you to the conclusion that we only seek the good, >:O

Nope - that's not what I said. If you know that fucking bitches is wrong, and you go and fuck bitches, then you're just acting irrationally. — Agustino

You're not allowing for disagreement between judgments.

A judgement isn't the same as an observation. We observe facts. We judge meanings. — Agustino

Fucking bitches is not factually wrong. And if you'd like to judge whether it's morally wrong, then what do you have to use in order to do that? Reason. The same thing that governs why someone may think the complete opposite.

Which things don't you do because you think them good? — Agustino

Typing on a keyboard is not a good, or any other amoral action.

Again, this doesn't disprove my point. Even if I'd rather please my penis (he said it!) than live a still life among monks, all that means is that I judge it to be good to please my penis, hence why I do it. — Agustino

Casanova might have said and done the same thing. He was having sex because he judged that it was the good.

I may be wrong now in my judgement - that pleasing my penis is good - but it doesn't follow from that that I'm not directed towards goodness.

Yep, you may be wrong. You also may be wrong about your judgement of the good always being sought, regardless of wrong judgments!

In this case me. Everyone judges for themselves. — Agustino

Great, so you judged God to be and not the other way around. Glad we've settled that!

You are defined by reason - it is part of your essence to be a rational animal. If you don't seek goodness, then you are irrational, and if you are irrational you - the rational animal - doesn't exist. — Agustino

Goodness is not rationality, however. One may be rational without striving for the good. If you contest that, okay, but then what will you, and I, use in order to best find the truth to our disagreement? Ah yes,reason.

By watching the structure of our reasoning faculty, and noticing that it is always aimed towards goodness, even when I do evil. — Agustino

Sounds like a good excuse to fuck bitches since we're aimed at "God" regardless of what we do.

My logic doesn't determine which judgement is right. It only makes the point that we're both pursuing our paths because we judge them to be good. That's a commonality we share, despite all our differences. — Agustino

As I said before, you have judged that we all pursue the good, which means that such a judgement cannot be true because you've already said that "logic doesn't determine which judgement is right."

Goodness is more primary than Being - that's the idea. — Agustino

And an unintelligible one at that.

I'm not going to let you continue to get away with that. — Baden

Given your avatar, I'm getting some Guy Fawkes vibes here, >:O

Because I am drawn to Goodness. — Agustino

>:O

So drawn to "Goodness" that you'd rather please your penis than live a still life among monks, >:O

Goodness is the end in-itself, that for which we do all things. — Agustino

All things? Nope.

Reason is directed towards goodness - we do things because we think them to be good. — Agustino

Just how you think having children is good.

Even the criminal does things because he thinks them to be good. He's not a criminal in-so-far as he does things which he thinks good (he's actually a saint in-so-far as he does that), he's a criminal only in-so-far as he's mistaken about what actually is good - it's a mistake of judgement, not one of reason in other words. — Agustino

So who judges his judgement to be wrong? You? If so, who judges your judgement of his judgement?

Because reason functions in this manner all by itself, we only have being in-so-far as we seek goodness; and we lack being in-so-far as we're mistaken in our judgements. — Agustino

This doesn't follow at all.

But it's important to note that we can't ever be fully mistaken so long as we're still rational. — Agustino

How'd you figure this out?

So long as we're rational, we'll pursue the good - whatever we identify the good to be. — Agustino

One cannot pursue that which he is not pursuing. I've never intended to wreck my car, but if I do, such does not mean that I pursued such an end merely because it happened.

If someone thinks the good is killing people, then he's making a mistake in judgement, and he will reap the rewards of what he has seeded - suffering and pain. — Agustino

I can say the same of your own judgement, that marital sex in fact propagates suffering and pain. According to your wonky logic, my judgement is as right as yours.

Because God is Good — Agustino

Good is Good, but what is God?

God has Being.

Has? So God's supposed Being is as much a quality as our own being...interesting......

So God can be nothing else but the Good? Why call Good God, then?

God cannot be evil by definition. — Agustino

Ah, so you define God, not God, whatever God is.

Ah, so we must worship that which has created the very thing that demands we worship it! Golly gee...

If this isn't God, would God be worth worshipping? — Agustino

Why worship at all? And I still am not sure how you've come to know precisely what God is and is not.

Because God is deserving of worshipping. God is deserving that you angle your whole life towards Him. If He were evil, instead of good, would he be as deserving? What makes God deserving of worship? Is it his might and power? Or is it his love and goodness? — Agustino

Who says all this is God?

Why can't God be evil? Who defines God?

I don't know, do you know the mind of God?

Why not?