It seems clear to me that you're simply trying to faithfully support your religious beliefs. — praxis

Lol, while they have stated they definitely are not Buddhist or believe their beliefs they do seem to have an extreme interest in supporting them beyond an interested layperson.

I don't think it matters if they are believers or not, and I take them at their word they are not.

@boundless whether you believe or not it seems you were earlier stating that my subjective belief that the same attainment can be achieved from any religious school was incorrect and implied I had no place stating that based on textual evidence, yet you have countered it as being incorrect only with Buddhist textual evidence that rebirth is essential and such so why is your text better than mine? You were also quite condescending about my suppositions earlier which implies you think your beliefs are better and 'right'. It seems odd you defend Buddhism so doggedly if you are not invested in it. I took the more pantheistic view that neither one is more right, so long as it gets to the destination, which you were also dismissive of. This, rather that what I apologised for above, is what I took issue with.

-edit-

Actually I have had a change of heart and agree now with earlier comments about shying away from discussion which could possibly enable someone.

Plenty of other interesting philosophy topics to discuss which do not have such a weight of responsibility.

(2) Conscious choice cuts both ways
Niki wants consciousness to do two incompatible jobs. On the one hand, consciousness is dismissed as a post-hoc rationalizer ("cope"). On the other hand, consciousness is elevated as the faculty that allows us to override biology and choose death. — Esse Quam Videri

A lot of distilled information in the post so I won't try and respond to all in one go but will pick this one up.

I am not saying I agree 100% with all the assertions, but rather I approved of the general thrust that all human motivations and rationalisations for the specialness of life can be reduced to survival instinct.

You can't have it both ways. If reflective agency is real enough to negate survival instinct, then it is also real enough to generate reasons, commitments, and meanings that are not reducible to instinct.

That is a very good and sneaky point lol.

I did not make that argument so I don't have to defend it hehe. Your counter does indeed make me re-evaluate what can and cannot be attribute to, or is in the service of, instinct though.

Gonna have to think about that some more, perhaps reading their original post again as well for context.

I hope I clarified what I meant and I also hope that I clarified that I am not writing these posts just for the sake of being a 'contrarian' or being obscure for the sake of being obscure or whatever. — boundless

Yes thank you and I apologise for the accusation as I think I was a little uncharitable there. You are clearly making honest efforts to explain your position.

I suppose our forking in the road is that you are saying the attainments of Buddhism are explicitly dependant upon the belief in rebirth and that these achievements are exclusive to the religious study of Buddhism and so without walking the path and all it entails then one cannot achieve them while I am saying it is a more general religious experience universal to any good religious practice.

So bad religious practice will not produce results in any schools while good practice of the respective religion will produce results. It may be true though that difference religions are more likely to produce awakened ones as the different religions will have different priorities about these outcomes.

I suppose what I am proposing is, to make an analogy, that there are many different martial arts and they are all capable of causing serious injury in the right hands. The injuries to the unfortunate person on the receiving end will be the same so it doesn't matter which martial art it is, even though the techniques to cause injury might be different.

While what you are saying seems to be the only Buddhism is the effective martial art or maybe the only one to cause a certain kind of damage? while the others might cause different and unique damage but not the same damage as Buddhism?

I already mentioned that in my reply.

I am not saying it won't. It might. It is open for discussion.

Once again I can’t make sense of what you’re saying. — praxis

I have got the feeling this user likes to be contrarian rather than agree with points we are saying, perhaps thinking it some kind of losing ground, and will throw a spanner in the works even on things that don't seem contentious just to keep the adversarial dynamic.

Yes I know what thread I was posting in. I saw your comments earlier about power requirements for some other stuff and AI technology is one that is said to require huge amounts.

Maybe the glass manufacturing produces more in comparison now, I don't know I haven't looked, but as per your claim, but AI is increasing so fast and at an exponential rate the power requirements will likely ramp up in kind. Glass manufacture has been happening for hundreds of years and is a very established industry yet AI is a nascent technology so of course it is expected the infrastructure are not going to be comparative at this time.

It is also salient because probably many of the tech bros who are claiming to be very green conscious will also be funnelling their resources into this none green technology.

What do y'all think about how with this mad arms race for getting the best AI amongst the mega corps it is using humongous amounts of resources?

Apologies if it was mentioned already but I did a quick search in thread for 'ai' and of course got a litany of unrelated results.

I guess the proponents will be saying that the benefits to humanity are worth the cost of finite resources and that the better iterations will be able to solve the very problems of resource use that they are causing.

So, how can we test such a hypothesis. The OP apparently thinks that "scientific evidence" + "some comparative religion studies" showed once for all that it is indeed possible to achieve the same states of 'enlightenment' of the Buddhist traditions without agreeing with their belief. Fine. However, are we sure about that? — boundless

I am not the one who came up with this and I think the subjectivity of religious experiences has been hotly debated for hundreds, maybe thousands of years.

In this general case I am not out to prove anything to the world, it is simply finding what will be satisfactory for my own journey. Likewise anyone who might be on a similar quest they may or may not resonate with what I am suggesting. Isn't that generally how it works?

People on the path try out different teachings and teachers until they find something that works for them.

Even the Buddha himself went around all different disciplines until he rejected them all and found his own way.

Best response I have read yet. Clear and plain.

I feel like these 'excuses' people make about life being special are akin to the classic religious tropes of intelligent design and such.

Yes it might be very slim a chance that the universe and then in turn life came into existence, and that coming about can be quite interesting to learn about but it doesn't mean that life is intrinsically good and must be preserved at all costs, which is the leap that most make.

The Buddhists have it right with 'life is suffering' however they then pile on their own religious delusions like the rest.

Oh that reminded me when I was thinking of this again. Nietzsche is just the same as the others in that he makes the leap that Will to Power is good in itself, same kind of life affirmation as the other existentialists, which we could say he was a precursor to. However, Schopenhauer, who he got most of his theories from up to the point of will to power where he then diverges had it best I think.

Schopenhauer is a good middle ground between western empiricism/reductionism and eastern thought and he was pessimistic in his outlook, which Nietzsche rejected calling it, and the eastern traditions, life denying. I had forgotten all about him but will have to take another look now at his The World as Wille and Representation.

This might be true but the original question was something like "is it possible to attain the same 'achievements' even if I do not believe in what Buddhists have always believed?".

IMO there are good arguments that the answer is 'no'. — boundless

You are ignoring again that evidence I have highlighted that many other religious disciplines reach similar levels of transcendence of the physical world yet don't believe in rebirth.

They have their own cultural analogies and explanations but I would hazard the spiritual experience is the same. Just like feeling love would be a human experience which would be explained in many difference ways across different cultures but the actual experience of love is the same for all.

Your sticking on rebirth being necessary to achieve a spiritual experience is very narrow if you are dismissing all other groups that don't believe in it and their own cultural versions of mystical awakening.

Meister Eckhart is apparently one who reached a high level but in the western tradition.

Eckhart Tolle has written quite a bit about the universal nature of the spiritual experience in his books and apparently was well read and refers to many different traditions in his writings drawing on the similarities.

Many other spiritual gurus which do not hold to a particular discipline who do the same.

The flip side of the question is 'what makes life worth living'. My problem I have had throughout my life is that society in general I find so vapid and disgusting. For most people in western society consumerism and binge drinking are the highest ideals.

If there was something worth fighting for that gives one reason to live but why does one want to fight for the above soulless nonsense? It seems that is satisfactory for the majority of society and I have never been able to get it or see how that can bring them satisfaction.

Some good points.

I don't think the things you mention are necessarily contingent on rebirth though. Why does becoming a mendicant have to have anything to do with rebirth? I think that is one thing which doesn't while others would be more tricky to explain away.

Even the explanations of the benefits from the Buddhist perspective, from what I recall, do not appeal to the supernatural. It is simply living humbly and I do remember now specifically the text stated the Buddha insisted on it in order to highlight the intertwined nature of the bikkhu and the lay people where one hand washes the other. The bikkhu gives insight for the lay person when the latter asks for guidance and the lay person gives the bikkhu food to survive. Nothing of that has to have anyhthing to do with supernatural explanations.

I agree that the traditional answer is going to be 'no' on all counts but of course they are biased and not able to give an uncoloured opinion.

As to the 'no selfness' being contingent upon rebirth I again don't think it is necessary. Lots of neuroscience, and this is a point Sam Harris makes when discussing the topic, has confirmed there is no 'I' to be found and it is just a social or cultural construct. So it can easily be explained from an empirical standpoint. To actually have some huge insight just from that data is another matter.

As mentioned earlier though, the same spiritual experiences have been documented from vastly different cultures and through the lens of their own religions and worldviews. This means that like the idea of God there is no one right answer. This then means that all the talk of reincarnation is not necessary to have such spiritual awakenings as the Christian mystics managed just the same and do not hold those same beliefs.

What should be done is to read through the different mystical experiences from each culture and religion and look for the common threads. Joseph Campbell apparently has done this in his work Masks of God. I have started reading it but not gotten very far in it and put it down after not many pages as I had another one of my downswings in motivation for the stuff again but seems I might be on an upswing again now, so maybe time to take another look.

Like with the Jungian archetypes, of which I know Campbell was also inspired by quite a bit, the spiritual experience is a human experiences, and not exclusive to one particular religion. The shallow or pop analysis of Buddhism states it is to have these experience without the religious dogma of the orthodox western religions, but when you scratch the surface you see Buddhism is steeped in its equivalent dogmas. It may just be a little more palatable for some as there is no solid "God" in their doctrines but all the devas and their antics and rebirth as just more of the same.

I would hazard a guess that it is the rituals of whatever religion not the actual content of the mythologies that allow the transcendent experiences. The question then is how to recreate that roadmap of the path to attainment as one who does not believe in any particular one? Can the same states still be achieved if one only takes them as allegories rather than realities?

If you're asking 'is Buddhism is a religion', then the answer is definitely 'yes'. But the deeper point is, the cultural background and underlying belief systems are vastly different from the Middle-Eastern religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam), to the extent where 'religion' itself means something different to what it is generally taken to mean in a Western culture — Wayfarer

I don't see how you could garner that interpretation from what you quoted. I of course know it is a religion. What I am asking is whether the none religious person can go as far along the path as the religious 'believer' when they do not accept a large part of the 'canon', seeing it as fallacious dogma.

If you believe there are levels of attainment and a destination it seems you’ve already drank much of the Kool-Aid. — praxis

Why?

There are physical feats that you can clearly see that Buddhists can do far above the normal human and nothing to do with the previous mumbo jumbo anecdotes mentioned. A prime example would be the self-immolation of Vietnamese Buddhists in protest during the Vietnam war.

That is evidence of some pretty amazing levels of emotional control to not even be visually disturbed when their whole body is set alight.

I would call that a higher level of attainment than the average human. It doesn't have to have anything to do with some unseen realm, it is there in plain sight for the cool rational western mind to observe empirically.

Likewise some Buddhist traditions would self-mumify at a certain age, for whatever spiritual reason they aimed to achieve. The reason might not hold water scientifically but their ability to control the body to remain perfectly passive and at ease while they know it is going to be destroyed is quite the feat.

Another slightly less drastic example would be those Buddhists who are able to go into trance state to have operations without any anaesthesia.

So their rationalisations for being able to do it might be fallacious but clearly they can control the mind to a far greater degree than the average none practitioner.

I suppose that is answering my own question that we can separate the two and visually see the results but I am wondering how a none woo woo person might achieve the same result.

Joseph Campbell studied the religions of the world and saw common themes of the spiritual experience among them all. It is how to manufacture, from a secular perspective, that common experience.

A lot of mention so far about reincarnation and I think that a lot of the time the practitioners couch their sufferings in this life against the idea of reincarnation or that they are going to a better place. It is just a variation of the Christian idea of going to heaven if you are good boys and girls.

I am wondering if one who practices and doesn't believe in any of that could attain similar earthly results to the above knowing this life is their one and only shot.

I see, what about the Ryan person mentioned above?

Besides past poster's personal issues it has been a fruitful discussion and likewise should it not be discussed as catharsis, indeed all the more reason to as Moliers and Jeremy Murray above have noted they get value from such exercises.

Of course, if you know particular poster's to be particularly vulnerable one must tread very carefully but I did not know any of that background and besides isn't the thread several years old? so I doubt the OP is even watching it any more so new people need not have that initial concern.

The suit comment was low-level but I feel the observation your discourse style is like Jordan Peterson is a valid one. When pressed you always go back to the modus operandi 'define x' when it seems you do not grasp a topic and them 'blame' the other person for not explaining properly and keep leading people round and round with irrelevant semantics as a smoke screen.

This is classic JP style.

You run the forum now or you 'told' on me to teacher? I have enough high level posts I think to balance out a couple of off hand remarks.

Or you meant you will 'deal with me' in the Mafia sense? Ok, the suit makes more sense now...

He wears a suit in his profile pic, so that must mean he knows what he is talking about. :smile:

I get the impression of a chap who is an alumnus of the Jordan Peterson school of Philosophising.

I've had both bad and good experiences with counselling. I also take medication. — Moliere

I believe this is where you exited the thread of mine on communism/anarchism when I implied that western medicine is mostly in place to pacify the worker and keep them productive in the Protestant work ethic tradition.

I am not saying some great things are not achieved with modern medicine, like how they can put a wire up through the groin with a camera and pull out a blood clot from the brain for example. There is lots of value, but there is also lots of not wanting to find a cause and just pacification because it is easier/cheaper to do that.

I am saying that medicine, like pretty much anything in society is steeped in politics as to what decisions are made on where to pour money to treat what. Sometimes that happily aligns with what is best for the patient/their ailment and often times it is not.

To bring it back round to counselling I would say that is subject to the same things as mentioned above. What counsellors encourage as healthy vs maladaptive will be in line with what the status quo is of society at large.

Fair enough, and it does. I can't believe in the mystical stuff either, but I do see value in ritual for those that do, or who practice it as ritual. — Jeremy Murray

Ah I didn't know you were familiar with them too, more than a pop understanding. Yes I tried to dig deeper into it and the metaphysical became a stumbling block each time as it is pretty unavoidable.

You have to do a lot of 'bracketing off' of that stuff and there comes to be so much bracketing off you wonder 'is this still Buddhism'? I still haven't found a good teacher/writer on the subject who seemed to have a high level of attainment while also dismissing that stuff. The book Buddhism without Beliefs promises it but did not deliver imo. They just do silly renaming of everything, even things there was no need to - for example, changing 'life is suffering', to 'life is anguish' - yea so what was the point of that? and much other semantics reshuffling. There was no conflict there, I think they just wanted to 'soften' it but anguish seems just the same kind of weight to it so don't know why they would change it. Mostly other pointless changes like that which made me stop reading not for in.

Sam Harris in his book Waking Up does the best job at extricating the useful from the bloat but all too little attention is given but what he did write in there was good. His basic evaluation was that the fantastical stuff was a product of their worldview or the times or just their flawed characters, which we must accept they were still human and capable of flawed judgement, despite what the writings would say that they are perfect beings who always made perfect decisions (that might be another debate if they always acts perfectly or not having attained 'enlightenment'), but we can still take a lot from their skills at insight and should not let the former color the latter.

Oh actually, now I think of it, Ajahn Chah and the Thai Forest traditional has been the closest. Although on deep inspection, from my reading, he did still believe in all the 'woo woo', but from some snippets I got he deliberately downplayed them in his teachings as he thought them distractions to learning the path as should be learning the nuts and bolts of practice.

Whatever his personal reason that did make his teachings very palatable from my perspective.

(Just so you know, the level of quibbling and evasion that you are engaged in within this thread is precisely what gets people onto my ignore list. So if you enjoy our conversations I'd suggest upping the ante.) — Leontiskos

I noticed that is his standard 'ace in the hole' lol. Used it a lot when debating with the formidable @Boethius.

For human minds, humans are ipso facto special as the one species who is itself (from their perspective). Thats fine. — AmadeusD

That is all this is about I think for the subject matter set out in the OP.

No cause for searching for immanent reasons, it is just that humans see other humans as special.

Oh and I was thinking, back on the topic of special/valuable, for a baby, they only maintain that status for the few years they are babies. Back to the hierarchy of values: If a baby becomes an adult male, they would no longer be seen as special: ripe for cannon fodder in a war or such. If a very attractive women, or even just being any woman, relative to men, they keep their specialness. Also this actually feeds back into the original criteria. Why are women seen as relatively more special than men? because they produce those special little things called babies! Back to evolutionary explanations, men only have to provide the seed so not special. Making a baby takes about 9 months.

The specialness could be seen, from the alien outside observer viewpoint again, as possessing consciousness and reflective perception. We are the only species that knows they are going to die as one example, so they say.

Now that is only special to us because we can appreciate it but perhaps other species with similar intelligences could also appreciate it as special. From a none (relatively higher) consciousness being's perspective it would not be special. Any of the animals you stated above of course would not see it as special.

So I suppose the question of special is, to whom? and only those species with similar traits would see those traits in other species as particularly special.

Some interesting debate has been had from a so called 'creepy and disgusting' thread eh? :)

This is why "special" seems a random label designed for something, rather than reflecting something. I don't know why. That said, i am most closely aligned with antinatalism, so showing my hand a bit. I think you've got it right - we've inserted this term without sufficiently defining it so we can continue to have babies despite overwhelmingly good reasons not to, for the most part. Not a moral argument here - I just cannot understand the press to consider babies 'special'. They simply aren't. They're one of a billion and useless, without sucking out resources from the world around them. I want the reason that gets past this.
I note the two arguing against me are (most likely.. Don't want to put my foot in it) coming from theological positions. I accounted for that, so unsure I need continue answer those challenges without the reason I'm after articulated clearly. — AmadeusD

You seem to be going on the assumption that society acts in perfectly rational ways and so why aren't they making the perfectly rational designation to devalue childbirth for the good of the greater society.

Most politics in populism. There is quite a bit of overlap with was discussed in my previous post a few weeks ago on humans following traditions, 'just because', when most times they are irrational.

Look at the stupid laws that stay in place like drug prohibition and euthanasia because of the puritanical views about both. No guys I am not a Puritan! as many here have accused me of being just from my OP.

Also on that note, for those who say it is Puritanism to say sex is somehow dirty, in the great words of Paulie Walnuts of Sopranos fame (paraphrased), "pi**ing, shi**ting, and fu**ing all take place within a few inches of each other, did you ever wonder why that is?" You can dress up having sex as much as you want, calling it beautiful love making or whatnot, but it is still getting pleasure from those waste expulsion orifices. That is a biological observation, not some theistic moral judgement.

As I have thought about this over the last few days there are many similar paradoxes in life - the union of the man and the woman begins in beautiful lovey dovey and can so easily turn to hatred, abuse and custody battles and even murder of the spouse.

Forgot the other examples but there are plenty when you think about it a bit.

I suppose it is just the age old yin and yang at play.

What it is is precisely something that will grow to be able to do those things. — Leontiskos

Indeed, it is like buying stock with potential. They know that, as a human, it has value.

However I would not say that is why there is the urge to protect the baby. It is rather it is just an instinct. Likewise how a man finds a woman attractive it is not some rational calculation that she will provide good off spring. A man just finds her 'hot'. It isn't a calculation that a person who finds a baby 'cute' is saying to themselves 'one day they will maybe be the next Einstein'. They just have the instinct to protect them due to natural selection having favoured those before which did so.

The OP seems to express a familiar Protestant hatred of sex which Denis Potter beautifully expressed in The Singing Detective. — Tom Storm

Here you are glossing over/ignoring the many times I stated it is not MY view. I guess you just skimmed a couple of the recent posts.

I think we are on the same page, for once, if we agree that both the value of sex and babies are an anthropomorphism.

Both the view that sex is good/bad and babies being special is subject to being a human. Of course some do not feel the same way such as asexuals, gays have different value of beauty, sociopaths will not care for babies or other humans, but by and large a normal example of a person in society is expected to view babies as valuable and special.

It is simply a product of the usual Darwinian urges is it not? like how humans are social creatures in general, and other rules of thumb that make up the traits of the species. As how fish are expected to swim and monkey expected to climb. There are exceptions where it isn't but by and large that is what is expected of the average human specimen.

A mother is expected to love her child and indirectly the larger society they are in are expected to see the baby as special because that is what keeps the species going. So it can simply be said it is natural selection because if that wasn't the case neither of us would be here typing and the mothers and societies that didn't see babies as special didn't continue their progeny.

There's nothing inherenlty good about a baby being born. Its often bad for all involved. — AmadeusD

You seem to be conflating what is objectively useful from what society deems as valuable.

You can say the same about a beautiful woman. They are not valued outside of the human realm but most guys will drool over her, while she has her best reproductive value at least.

Also in turn society values them highly. If you think it is perfect egalitarianism go to a nightclub on your own on any weekend and see how you are treated by the bouncers compared to attractive an woman. Many other examples but that would be the most stark.

As the old saying goes 'women and children first'. That leaves men at bottom of the barrel.

I suppose I was discussing a fact of nature in my OP, so your response is a correct answer to my original query. However I was not aware at the time, that my value judgement of sex being dirty or whatnot, again not talking from a Puritanical point, just that it can be hot and nasty and also fun, is probably a societal view so perhaps better to shift the goalposts now to the societal aspect.

They are not telling anyone how to live their lives. Only the right wing does that. They have the more rigid ideology, which expects everyone to conform to their beliefs. Any dissent from that is seen as moral failure. — Questioner

Well, to play devil"s advocate and precisely what I meant in the OP, that is exactly what the Right are saying the Left do, in the form of 'wokeness' and demanding everyone use new genders to refer to people and such.

Though I would say that the super wokies are not representative of the majority on the Left, however the closed mindedness you point out on the Right is probably more prevalent. I say probably as I have not bothered to think about it much but in general the Right are less 'tolerant' of other's ideas as a fundamental part of the party/political views whereas that is not the case with the Left. The authoritarian wokeness trend seems a more new phenomenon, I would trace back to the 70s, where it started with noble goals but become 'runaway' ideology with finding more and more things to be outraged about just for the sake of adding fuel to the movement rather than it being legitimate injustice.

The left can coherently tolerate the more extreme views of those on the right without accepting them. — Banno

I am not sure this has to be about tolerating extreme views?

Also the term tolerance seems to be a sticking point which lends itself to the interpretation it must tolerate extremism.

I would say that the positive ideals of the Left are that they welcome diversity and difference as diversity is healthy just like sexual diversity in dna and such.

So on this interpretation it is not inconsistent to welcome diversity but be intolerant of those who don't welcome it. Then the Right might say 'but why don't you welcome our views equally?' then I would say because they don't encourage inclusiveness.

As I wrote that it reminded me of where I got that from recently. David Pakman made a good point that the Left welcome diversity but the Right in general see difference as a threat and want to protect against it. Tighter immigration laws, more guns to protect your stuff and so on.

He put it much better but that is the gist I recall.

Although the names of political parties can be meaningless, in this case it seems to ring true that Conservative is in line with their values to want to conserve existing values and resist change.

Overton Window — Leontiskos

Lol any time I have read that phrase it has been in some Right wing conspiracy article. Similar to 'cultural marxism' and 'Great Replacement' and talk of 'European stock'.

If you don't think that conservative politics struggle not to appear heartless, you're probably in an ever-shrinking minority. — Pantagruel

Exactly what I was getting at in my OP.

The Right try and claim the Left are just as/more intolerant which I don't think is true from an unbiased point of view. Of course they would say I am biased, being on the Left, so I could never give a fair appraisal and they will say 'we are just as tolerant or even more because of xyz', Usually the xyz is that they are anti-woke and bastions for free-speech.

The left and right are mutually intolerant because they are motivated by incompatible ideas of freedom. For the right, individual freedom takes precedence over social freedoms (i.e. opposition to free-market regulations). For the left, social freedoms surpass individual (hence anti-discrimination laws, which essentially sanctify or at least codify tolerance).

An orientation that prioritizes social freedom still includes a real residuum of individual freedom (for example, what is not explicitly prohibited is allowed). But an orientation that prioritizes individual freedom inherently destroys social freedom, because the residuum in that case consists only of what remains after private discretion has run its course ("trickle-down economics" of freedom).

So the left implicitly allows for the existence of the right, they simply require them to constrain their acquisitive behaviours within the limits of social functionality. The right makes no such concession. In Kantian terms, the philosophy of the left is universalizable, the right, not. — Pantagruel

That seems a good roundup of Right and Left.

I think I want to get more to the nub of my question.

Could it be said of an outsider Alien race looking in that the Left's policies were more tolerant than the Right's?

I am thinking of something like the Starfleet Federation from Star Trek right now. They are enlightened Left aren't they? Isn't this vision of interaction rationally more appealing than the selfish every man for himself, let the strongest survive, of the Right?

"that person" — Outlander

First time I am learning referring to someone as they is improper. Nowadays it is improper to assume gender and be told off of 'misgendering'.

"that person" — Outlander

Doesn't make sense to me, perhaps a language difference thing? Nitpicking anyway to look further.

since you had previously mistakenly mentioned my post as something derogatory, thus priming my expected use of "they" to include multiple persons as opposed to it's actual use. An understandable misunderstanding. As it were. — Outlander

Yes I see, no problem.

Perhaps the OP's underlying sentiment can be likened to how coal (a crude, dirty material) is the only way that results in diamonds (highly valued and generally clean and pure material) from otherwise violent, messy, and mindless forces. — Outlander

This is the one and I don't see anything creepy or disgusting about stating such.

One 'them' made 2 comments in the derogatory - that my post is creepy and then followed up that it is disgusting.

Rather than some noble interpretation that Jamal states I read it more in the "shutdown this line of enquiry because it deviates from the societal norm" in the cancel culture type of vein.

Them? — Outlander

You are not familiar with them being used to refer to a person in the singular?

Also let's not forget the 'new' none binary gender!

one which is probably closer to the way T Clark sees things. I mean the view that sees the idea that sex is dirty or that the animal in us is something to be ashamed of or to transcend—that this idea itself is what is offensive, rather than sex or the "bestial". In other words, it is disgusting that people find sex disgusting. — Jamal

That seems a very charitable appraisal of them calling my post creepy. Seems you are assigning your own interpretation.

It seems the much more likely evaluation is they said it is creepy/disgusting simply because I am talking about sex in probably what they think is a puerile manner; one which they deem as socially inept which is usually the reason for calling something creepy.

I just shared what I found to be a biological observation that there is an incongruence between the base act of sex and the happy act of baby productions.

You are misinterpreting what I was saying. I am not saying sex is dirty in a Puritan type of way. I am saying it is nasty in the 'sexy' way. Like you want your girlfriend to be nasty in the bedroom. That is not to be prudish. Quite the opposite. It is to embrace the nastiness and revel in it.

I am not making value judgements about it. Sex is nasty by nature and that is all fine. I am only pointing out the juxtaposition between nasty sex and sweet coochy cooo babies which result from the act.

I had thought of another corollary which is salient. Manure is also thought of as nasty and yet that feeds the soil to produce good healthy crops.

But in light of T Clark's scathing analysis — Outlander

Again this bandwagoning is what I see far too much on other forums. As soon as one negative post comes, others seem to get their courage and pile on.