the psychopathology of normality

Living a normal life does not require actualising your potentials. — Agustino

I disagree with you immensely on this point, and let me widen the area of disagreement

I maintain that actualization of potential is part of a normal life, and without such actualization we are consigned to a decidedly arid, barren existence (and it isn't something we choose, generally). Sexuality is one part of an embodied life, one of several elements which demand actualization. We've flogged sex long enough, for now.

• "The term, self-actualization, was originally introduced by the organismic theorist Kurt Goldstein for the motive to realize one's full potential. Expressing one's creativity, quest for spiritual enlightenment, pursuit of knowledge, and the desire to give to society are examples of self-actualization. In Goldstein's view, it is the organism's master motive, the only real motive: "the tendency to actualize itself as fully as possible is the basic drive... the drive of self-actualization."
  
  Carl Rogers similarly wrote of "the curative force in psychotherapy – man's tendency to actualize himself, to become his potentialities... to express and activate all the capacities of the organism."
  
  Abraham Maslow had very low expectations. "self-actualisation...rarely happens...certainly in less than 1% of the adult population." The fact that "most of us function most of the time on a level lower than that of self-actualization" he called the psychopathology of normality." ºº

The reason why "most men lead lives of quiet desperation"ººº is exactly the psychopathology of normality. 99% of us are actively prevented from striving toward self-actualization because our lives are exploited (alienated labor) and actualization is repressed in the interests of tight social control and maintenance of supporting moral systems which devalue the lives of workers (who are, more or less, 99% of the population).

Living a normal life does not require actualising your potentials. — Agustino

Your phrase rings in my ears and knots up my gut because this is EXACTLY the sentiments of the corporate world toward its workforce and towards it's necessary consuming population. "Never mind your potential personhood, just keep buying this crap."


ººThis is a quote from Wikipedia; I don't have my personality theory texts from 40 odd years ago -- you can't keep everything.

ºººHenry David Thoreau -- one of Maslow's few exemplars of self-actualization, and a hero of my youth.

Sex has no other meaning but intimacy or reproduction. — Agustino

I would say it either has more meanings (some of which you listed later) or it has no meaning at all. I prefer not to think it has no meaning.

objective perfection ... SUBJECTIVE perfection. — Agustino

I have no idea what these two phrases mean.

[cope with] a fear of commitment, — Agustino

subtle feeling of superiority — Agustino

a situation of ruling over — Agustino

achieve good social standing — Agustino

[satisfy the] need to be desired by another — Agustino

Yes, casual sex can do all this and more for individuals. You or I may not like it, but these are contributions to the meaning of sexual encounters.

Example of more meaning : A gay man just coming out is likely to experience validation in the act of sex with another man, in a way that straight men or women might not. Sex in the gay community often is the means by which links between otherwise isolated individuals are made. (This would apply to pre-social media, pre-Grindr, GPS facilitated chats, and so forth. This 'epoch' is little more than a decade old. It also applies to pre-and-early gay liberation when and where there were few ways of meeting other gay people aside from sexual encounters.)

most people don't know how to properly masturbate — Agustino

How the hell did you come to this conclusion?

How's that for, pace Spinoza, a more geometrico breakdown of the psychology behind the pursuit of sex? — Agustino

It's a breakdown, alright.

I would disagree most find the intimacy and loving relationships they desire. Most THINK they do at times of their life, only to later realise that they've deceived themselves. — Agustino

If X says he has found intimacy and a loving relationship, on what basis would you be so bold as to dismiss his claim as an error? It seems highly presumptuous to dismiss other people's experiences, especially when one isn't there to observe them, and when there is no basis for the judgement shown. How would you sort the deceived from the truly and intimately loved?

An 18 year old will have such and such an experience of intimacy and love. The same person 18 years later will probably have a different experience of intimacy and love, and at 65 yet another sort of experience. It isn't that they were wrong in each instance, just that their horizons probably expanded.

I absolutely agree that love is the best motivation; intimacy adds more meaning to sex; institutions can not act out of love (or any other emotion). Most people (somewhere above 90%) go out and find the sex and intimacy they desire, and they engage in mutually loving relationships -- at least sometimes.

Some people, though, can't perform the acts necessary to engage in social interaction as a first step. They have a range of neurological and physical disabilities which prevent normal socializing, let alone normal sexual interaction. Who will provide them with loving, intimate care? Families usually do this for children, but as children age into adults this often becomes physically and psychologically impossible to continue. (The parents, remember, are getting older too.)

In some cases, parents opt to have their children's physical growth suspended (through growth and sexual hormone blocking medications) so that they can continue to care for the child into their adulthood (by keeping the child physically small -- small enough for the parents to lift and transfer). Usually this is done in the case of early childhood brain damage.

I don't like this approach either, but the alternative is usually institutionalization. Institutions can do an excellent job, but they can't be counted on. Changes in personnel, funding, and policy by state agencies can change the quality of care completely and suddenly.

Not everyone has family nearby. Adults who were once able bodied can become totally incapacitated a long way from home. They may not have spouses; they may not have siblings or children. (The US is a big place -- families are often scattered thousands of miles apart.) The disabled adult might rather die than subject their family to their intense care needs.

These are extreme situations, but quite real. The extremity of their circumstances has implications for all people. We are all embodied beings with similar needs and potentials. Can we, as a policy of compassion, assure that those who are disabled physically (and mentally in terms of mental illness rather than severe cognitive impairment) have the opportunity to live a fuller life which includes sexual pleasure?

There is an erotic massage program (The Body Electric) which teaches people how to give and receive safe, sexual experiences through tantric practices. In sex therapy it's called "sensate focus". In current parlance it's called 'edging".

The object is to provide extended time in erotic arousal through light massage (front side of the body) and sexual stimulation short of orgasm. (Avoiding orgasm is part of the tantric bit; experiencing orgasm doesn't invalidate the experience, but it should be quite delayed.) Deep breathing and relaxation techniques are also part of it.

This program was developed primarily for persons with AIDS. But the basic techniques work on anyone. (Do try it at home.)

Picture yourself deprived of physical pleasure for lack of physical capacity, for years on end. Can one survive? Yes. Is there any virtue in experiencing zero physical pleasure vs. experiencing intense physical pleasure? No. A whole person requires a validation of embodiment by experiencing pleasure, gustatory pleasure, sexual pleasure, warmth, coolness, movement -- the gamut.

Sexual pleasure may not be the ultimate good, but it is never-the-less well worth having.

I don't know, either, whether cows prefer to be milked, or not. If their udder is full, they seem to be anxious to have it emptied. I do know they have to go through regular pregnancies every year in order to keep producing milk. No calves, no milk. Do cows enjoy delivery? Probably not. It can be pretty difficult. Do they enjoy nursing their calves? Sometimes they don't -- calves will sometimes butt the udder hard with their heads to get more milk, and the cows, from all appearances, do not appreciate this. Getting milked by machine might be more pleasant, in that respect.

Since animals necessarily suffer, regardless of whether humans interact with them or not, it is morally permissible to inflict suffering on animals.

There's a disconnect. On the one hand animals necessarily suffering is what happens, and I don't see how you've gotten to your conclusion that therefore it is ok for humans to cause their suffering. — Sinderion

But... Are we inflicting suffering on animals when we raise them in a humane manner, and then at some point, end their lives humanely?

Granted, there are ghastly ways of treating animals. Factory farming fits the definition of ghastly. Animals raised in these conditions most likely suffer stress, if not physical pain. Factory farming is used for no other purpose than to maximize profit with a minimum of expense. Somebody (the animals first) pays the price.

In a less intense regime of farming, where animals are not subjected to the conditions of factory farming, suffering can be minimized if not eliminated. Of course, traditional farming methods use more land, but it is used less intensively. Traditional farming can probably not produce the same quantity of meat as intense farming.

It's a trade off similar to what happens to workers in factories: Intense pursuit of profit, minimal expense, speed-up--all that--produces more suffering, and greater suffering. The solution to produce less suffering is to consume less production--buy fewer goods, eat less meat.

OR, we can automate the factory using robots to make things, or produce meat in tanks.

BTW, texturized vegetable protein extruded into a bin is not appealing. It has to be seasoned and combined with flavorful ingredients to taste good. I agree, at the point of production some of the vegetable protein substances are disgusting. Mock Duck, used in vegetarian asian dishes, is (I think) a wheat based product that is very chewy and tasty -- because of the sauce and seasoning. It doesn't taste like duck, exactly, but certainly not bad. Tofu is just untexturized vegetable protein.

Each one of us doesn't actually fit in perfectly in our own societies. Our thoughts may not resonate with that of others, our values may be rejected as undesirable. Our behavior may not agree with others. Etc. — TheMadFool

God, this is the story of my life!

Why doesn't the EU negotiate a trade off of debt for settlement with Greece? — Cavacava

It would seem like there might be some problem finding housing, medical facilities, food distribution systems, water, transportation, etc. for 1,000,000 people in Greece, and maybe twice or three times that many. The population is 10 million+. Adding 10%, 20,% or almost a third as many people would probably not be doable.

The Refugees are already in 1 over-burdened country (Turkey -- at least I assume Turkey is kind of over-burdened) why would they want to go to an even more over-burdened country?

They could, perhaps, be sent to, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Iranistan.

ACTUALLY I am in favor of Europe, the US, Brazil, Russia, China, and anybody else taking in refugees on a temporary basis (not forever). Clearly these people need help. What I am opposed to is the assumption that if countries don't do it, then they are bigoted, close minded and fear spreading, xenophobic, and worse. There are rational reasons for taking in refugees, and rational reasons for not taking refugees.

One good reason for keeping refugees on a clearly temporary basis, is that many of them are skilled, professional people who are going to be desperately needed in their home country once things settle down again. Countries like Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Tunesia, Egypt -- whatever -- can not afford to lose their educated class and be forced to start from scratch.

Animals suffering without human intervention doesn't justify us inflicting additional suffering on animals. — Sinderion

I am pointing at animal suffering as a given, whether we eat them or not. "Eating an animal" per se doesn't increase their suffering. Suffering is ubiquitous; a wild chicken, a free range chicken, and a factory farm chicken all suffer. They all die. Eating dead meat does not increase their suffering.

Whether we consume more meat than we *need* is a separate issue. The OP only asks if meat eating is ethically permissible, I argue there is a possible scenario where it is.

I am claiming here that eating meat is ethically permissible, but that it has negative environmental consequences, a critical issue because our human-and-animal-favorable environment is under so much threat. Eating meat is ethical provided that our impact on the environment is small (not zero). How much meat we eat, therefore, is relevant.
— Sinderion

I've already stipulated for environmental arguments, lab grown meat should (though I can't say for certain) be able to do away with factory farming, which should also defuse most of the environmentalist argument. — Sinderion

I'm not quite sure what you have in mind. In a way, factory farming IS lab grown meat. Do you suppose that these huge vats of cell cultures, growing away, are not going to require substantial inputs of nutrients and energy? Do you suppose that there will be no waste products from these big tanks? Billions of pounds of cell culture are engaging in the kind of metabolic activity that produces all sorts of waste products. There will be costs -- it won't be like, "ah, a free lunch at last."

They have produced a few ounces of lob meat; it was, I gather, not great but... "OK". I'd be fine with lab grown meat, but it probably won't compare with a real pork chop. Have you tried the full range of texturized vegetable protein meat substitutes? Some of them are moderately convincing and taste fairly good.

Regarding your last point, it's a controversial stand to take either way if you believe that the health of the individual trumps his free will or that his free will trumps his health. — Sinderion

I don't see why health and autonomy would be in opposition.

Kicking them out because they are, say, Muslim is bigoted. — darthbarracuda

Why?

The Central Planning Office determined that Muslims did not fit into the long-range plans for establishing atheism, pork eating, booze guzzling, free sex, and religion ridiculing as the exclusive non-belief system. Why can't a nation decide whether they are willing to have their cultural norms upset or not by people they didn't want there in the first place?

Unless the refugees do not desire to become citizens, they should be allowed to at least try to become one. — darthbarracuda

Why?

We don't really want them to stay any longer than 5 years. We don't want their problems, or their cultural characteristics. Humans may all be equal in the cold calculations of the universe, but the same can not be said for cultures and religions. We worked hard to weed out Christianity; we don't want another bastardized religion taking up shop here.

We pride ourselves on the solidarity we achieve during our weekly blasphemous, pork-eating, alcohol swilling, free sex, religion-ridiculing rituals. We are sure Moslems will not accept this feature of our culture. We're not changing, and we don't want to put up with people who would be judging us while we are supporting them.

So...no. Don't make our doorstep your destination. Go to the Swedes, and be damned.

Your door handle and lamp don't seem very counterfactual.

"relating to or expressing what has not happened or is not the case; a counterfactual conditional statement (e.g., If kangaroos had no tails, they would topple over )..."

Doorknobs turning and doors opening, or lamps being pushed off the table and crashing to the floor don't sound like counterfactuals. Explain more, please.

It would cause anxiety because anxiety is a defense mechanism that arises out of an overdetermination of possibilities. In reality, perhaps there need not be anything to fear. But the biological programming that we have makes it so that regardless of this, the lack of any antecedent raises alarm. — darthbarracuda

Some people are more "missing antecedent" tolerant than others. Some people have free-floating anxiety which avidly seeks events to which it can attach (like being born, for example). Some people respond to anomalies with curiosity, as Sir2U suggests. Some weird phenomena crops up, and they say, "Well, that's odd! How did this happen?" and then they investigate--maybe never solving the mystery, and never lapsing into anxiety over it either.

Here's an example of brittle, flimsy multiculturalism:

Our Nordic Lutheran pastoral staff are hot to trot to bag a refugee family to sponsor. (Molds of their heads will be mounted on the walls in the office.) A small group of sort of seedy alcoholics wanted to use a room one night a week to hold an AA meeting (lots of churches host Alcoholic and Narcotics Anonymous meetings). The good pastors clearly had indigestion at the thought of the seedy, needy, alcoholics who totally lacked multiculti credentials using a room in the church. ("They might steal stuff.")

True enough, the AA people might steal something. So might refugees steal something. So might church members steal something. For that matter, the pastors themselves might steal something (and just my guess, probably have, though by going through channels, not by a 5 fingered discount like I would use).

Forcibly kicking them out is bigoted, close minded and spreads fear, while allowing every single person in for as long as they want is an impossible dream. — darthbarracuda

Why is kicking them out "bigoted, close minded and spreads fear"? Do not a sovereign people (Poles, Finns, Irish, Italians, Turks, Rumanians, Russians, Americans, British, French, etc.) have a right to say whether or not a million people from another part of the world can move in there, just because their own country has become a shit hole?

"Come stay for X years, or until your country is stable--which ever comes first--then you have to go back" sounds like a more palatable plan than "Come stay forever, whether your country ever is a nice place to live again, or not."

Do the governments of refugee admitting nations that also have high unemployment (already) plan on doing anything about their citizens who don't have jobs? If they are not solving their native unemployment problems, why should they spend money on future unemployed people from someplace else?

I would trust a refugee destination country more if they said, "Look: We don't really want you here, but we understand that you have been driven out of your own homes. We will admit you under two conditions: 1) You adapt to our lifestyle (rather than we adapt to yours) and 2) you will not become citizens here, no matter what. When your country gets itself together, back you go."

I distrust the Swedish multicultural approach. I suspect that it is brittle and less sturdy than it looks--sort of like the junk they sell at IKEA. (I do like Swedish meatballs, however.)

if there was a way to eat meat without contributing to the suffering of animals I think most of the weight of the argument against meat eating dissipates. — Sinderion

Of course, animals suffer whether meat is an item on the menu or not. No body is eating us, yet we suffer. Birds suffer. Mammals of all sorts suffer from non-human-caused events. Farm animals, were they freed and were they able to live on their own, would still suffer.

Decay and suffering, as the Buddha said, is inherent in all compounded beings.

Animals suffer because we are exposed to a frequently hostile environment of predation and disease, starvation, and injury.

The amount of suffering a cow, for instance, experiences in the course of its milking life is minimal. Cows are valuable and are taken good care of. At the end of their life they are hauled off to a slaughter house and killed. Their death is pretty quick. That beats the way many animals die in the wild, where predators begin chowing down on their prey before it is dead.

The environmental impact of animal consumption (meat, wool, milk, labor) has been with us for a long time. There was environmental damage from over-grazing by sheep/goats 3 millennia ago. 3 millennia later, goats are the least of it. Pigs, chickens, and cattle (and other animals) exist in huge numbers, and the burden of raising enough feed for them all constitutes a sort of over-grazing.

In addition to the land that is worked in order to produce animal protein, the guts of cattle produce a lot of methane (a more potent green house gas, but shorter lived than CO2). 1 cow we can tolerate; 1 million cows we can tolerate; 1 1/2 billion cows, maybe not.

How much meat are you eating on an average day? 1 serving, all kinds? 2 servings? 3? 1 serving is really all we need (in terms of diet for non-vegetarians). How big is your serving? 6 oz (170 gr.)? 4 (113 gr.)? 3 oz (85 gr.)? Maybe you are eating a lot more than you need?

Dairy products are a very useful source of nutrition for children all over the world, and for people of European extraction into adulthood. Calcium, protein, fat, and other nutrients can be obtained from sources other than milk, of course.

People who are well fed from childhood forward tend to be larger than people who have grown up eating minimal diets. When asians move to the United States, for instance, their children born here quite often grow up to be much bigger than them.

Do people have a right to eat the kind of food that allows them to grow to their full genetic potential?

As a child, I was two years in the US School system, then went back for third grade here in Finland. I visited my former classmate friends when I was 16 (that happened in the late 80's).

What was then (at the age of 16) quite apparent that the standards were far lower in the US than in the Finnish system. OK, I attended a so-called elite-school which finished usually second or third place in the matriculation examination (basically the finishing test of the gymnasium) in the country, but still. The standards were obviously lower in the US.

Perhaps it's something you are talking about, Bitter. — ssu

Selective, elite schools in the US, Finland, or Timbuktu always do better than general, public schools because elite schools can assemble a homogeneous, academically oriented student population. Public schools in the US (and other countries) are composed of highly diverse students who range from "fuck all you faggots" to students who are highly motivated. It's difficult to teach to such a wide range of students and achieve good results.

There is the phenomena of minority control and despotism. If you are going to invite 20 people for dinner, and 3 of them tell you they are principled vegans, you will probably put together a menu that accommodates their personal kink, rather than making two separate menus, dishes for 17, dishes for 3. Everybody is going to miss out on pork roast or leg of lamb.

Similarly, if in a class of 20 or 30 students, 3 or 4 of them are unable to operate in an orderly fashion, the teacher will be spending an inordinate amount of time dealing with them. Or, if a few students do not speak English well, or if a few students are blind -- whatever the minority make up, will tend to dominate the planning and execution of lessons. It can work in the other direction. If most students are sleeping, one will teach to the 3 students who are alert and listening.

Elite schools can do a better job because they have largely eliminated 'minority' elements. Everybody is operating on a similar high level. I did work for a year with a group of young adults (18-21) who were at the bottom end of the academic distribution. That program was organized to accommodate their very significant limitations. We only attempted to teach them how to read, write, fill out forms, and how to perform manual work. Some of these guys were really very pleasant people, and some of them were quite smart -- but they had been abysmally failed by school and society. (Some of them were liars, thieves, knaves, and scoundrels, too.) In about a year we were able to give them basic literacy at a 6th grade level. Not high by any means, but high enough to operate in society. They had sub-standard manual skills, but better that than nothing. (Part of our success was having a large group of senior citizen volunteers who helped the guys work through their lessons. The 1 on 1 attention made a huge difference.)

Another thing about our success, we were a Civilian Conservation Camp out in the middle of nowhere. We had a "captive audience". Our urban guys found the surrounding woods and swamps to be kind of horrible places, especially at night, and we didn't have to lock them in.

Their attitude sucks. — Sir2u

No doubt you are correct about their suctive attitudes. Suctivity is endemic.

I have been told so many times that they don't need to remember this or that because they can always GOOGLE it, — Sir2u

You probably read Is Google Making Us Stupid?.

I don't know whether it is or not. I use Google a lot to get information I know exists but which I can't remember clearly enough to quote (like "Is Google making us Stupid" -- couldn't remember which magazine published it). I use it to find information I think exists, but which I haven't read. Of course I use it for derelict purposes as well. I'm 69, however. My learning style was put together when magazine articles had to be looked up in the index of periodical literature, and the card catalog was how you found books in the library. Then you had to actually read the book, take notes, and all that folderol.

What many avid users of internet resources don't get is that there is an enormous difference between locating information and copy/pasting the text on the one hand, and actually absorbing and integrating the information in one's brain on the other hand.

There is a difference [as you well know] between googling "causes of WWI" and inserting the bulleted list into a composition, on the one hand, and reading a good discussion of WWI causation. The Fall of the Dynasties: The Collapse of the Old Order: 1905-1922 by Edmond Taylor 1963 has given me a much better understanding of WWI than I ever had before. It's a thick book with few pictures (I'm reading a digital copy). Showing how the Romanov, Hapsburg, Hohenzollern, and Osman dynasties were allied and opposed, detailing the decay into which these core European power blocks had fallen, even explaining what decay meant, and showing how they ended up at war, despite themselves, just isn't reducible to 5 bullet points.

When I was the age of the students you are working with, I didn't know any better. I did slipshod work and wasn't very interesting in much of anything. The efforts of several teachers eventually paid off - years later - when I finally did get interested and worked harder.

There is probably quite a bit of continuity in your life -- childhood forward -- else you would not have accomplished what you have so far achieved.
— Bitter Crank
What do you mean exactly by this? — Agustino

What did I mean? Nothing more than that your intellectual development proceeded in a beneficial, straight-forward manner.

Proceeding forward with continuity doesn't always happen; people can get side-tracked by peer pressure, or involved in "sex, drugs, and rock & roll", or they have to work in very unrewarding jobs, or they get married and/or pregnant, or any number of other side-tracking events that either interrupt or stop their forward progress.

What sort of a failed criticizer are you that you don't recognize a bit of sarcasm when you see it? Maybe I worded the question wrong though, let me try again.
How the fuck do they know that I am not me when I don't even know that? — Sir2u

Our jokes don't seem to be working on each other today.

School is supposed to teach kids not just to read but to understand as well. I have met students from the US of A and Europe that are taking their break year and they cannot differentiate between the main idea in a paragraph and the supporting information.

School is supposed to teach not just how to write but also the correct things to right. A lot of colleges have dropped their basic language course to force the responsibility back on the schools where it should be. Student should know how to write an essay before they leave school I think. — Sir2u

I did a decade in the trenches dealing with poor reading skills, poor writing skills, poor arithmetic skills, poor study skills, etc. -- mercifully before the Internet was born. I couldn't agree more that schools should be teaching these skills -- some of it by 5th or 6th grade, let alone by the 12th grade, or merciful god, before they get into college.

IF the parents' aspirations are high, they will insist on literacy and if necessary move to a district where the schools are good. Unfortunately, not all parents insist on literacy, and it isn't possible for everyone to move into a good school district. At the present time, children in the US tend NOT to exceed the accomplishments of their parents and parental economic and cultural attainments have not been on an upward-bound slope.

From the most negative point of view--the student as future consumer and not much more--it doesn't make much difference whether they can read, write, think clearly, or not -- they just need to get a job that pays them enough to be adequate consumers. 100 million stupid low wage earners can still make a batch of people quite rich. THAT is what matters from that cynical negative point of view.

I have met some children, teen agers, and young adults who are doing just great in school. They are doing just fine intellectually. These people are not elite children -- just the children of parents with reasonably high aspirations who are insisting on performance.

Clearly, many children are from homes and communities (not just black kids) where aspirations are not high (they don't see avenues of advancement available to themselves or their children) and they are not insisting on achievement from the children. Why would they, if they themselves can't see any way forward?

No, that's not what I think. I think more and better intellectual preparation is ALWAYS better, no matter what. Still better is having an economy which can actually produce a future for intellectually prepared people and where intellectual achievement is esteemed.

Schools that must take all comers can not buck the downward trend in aspirations and expectations. Abysmal home conditions (like poor black children who's exposure to language is about half the level of white children and where negative strokes are about twice as common as for white children) result in children who are literally behind in Kindergarten, and fall further behind each year. By 6th grade they are too far behind to do well, no matter what.

Children who come from chaotic homes; couch surfing homes; homeless families; troubled, screwed up families; impoverished homes; families with drug/alcohol abuse; and so on and so forth are presenting problems which schools just can't solve. If even 20% of a school's population falls into these categories, it will probably result in less effective education for everybody concerned.

Whatever the solution is, it will be achieved in the community with actual job opportunities with decent pay, adequate housing, robust social work programs to help child-rearing-skill-deficient families, stable communities with "amenities" like parks, libraries, music and arts programming, and stuff like that. I don't expect to see anything like this being proposed, let alone being funded.

There are the "material" changes which facilitated my turn in thinking and living (hope your Marxist questions have now been satisfied ;) ). Make what you will of them BC! — Agustino

You seem to be a normal "type A" personality -- professionally aggressive, ambitious, striving vigorously towards goals, and a "big picture" thinker rather than a "detail" person. These are often characteristics of accomplished people -- though type A detail people do well too.

What field of engineering -- civil/chemical/mechanical/electrical? Are you presently practicing? I assume you like engineering.

How old are you? (You may have said somewhere in another thread; age is important in understanding someone's stage in life.) Also, what country did you grow up in?

You also appear to be a systematic thinker. It all fits together into a cohesive picture. (I like cohesive pictures). There is probably quite a bit of continuity in your life -- childhood forward -- else you would not have accomplished what you have so far achieved.

We are what we are, whether type A or type B personalities, big picture or detail people (I hate details), engineers or poets, platonists or aristotelians. Usually there isn't much we can do about these things. Type B personalities can drink a gallon of coffee, snort some amphetamines, smoke some crack, and they still won't be type A people.

Happy, type B personalities are also often successful, but not in the same jobs as Type As, and not by the same methods. Type B people tend to be less stressed and tend to boil at a higher temperature -- it takes more to incite them. My boiling temperature used to be much lower than it is now. I can tolerate annoyances (85% of the time) that in the past would have provoked a strong reaction. Why the change? Better mental health in my case. I can now strategically withdraw from troublesome issues which before I would have waded into, whether that made sense or not, and overheated in the process (i.e., become too riled up).

I certainly didn't. My positions and approach to everything RADICALLY changed around 17-20. — Agustino

When, whether, how, or not one's positions and approaches change probably depends on one's social and intellectual milieu (which one usually can't do too much about at 17) and one's social / physical / intellectual confidence. I was not ready to undertake radical changes in thinking and behavior at 17. A sort of sheltered small town upbringing just didn't prepare me to make [wise] major changes. Leaving home and going to a state college was about all I could manage at that point. Had I struck out on a radical path, it probably would have turned out badly. Later... like 5 years after finishing college and getting more experience in the wider world, I was much more prepared to 'break out'.

When the time came to make more radical changes, I moved very slowly. The major change was to rid myself of the religious world-framework I grew up with and had been maintaining. This change involved a lot of persistence, resistance, cognitive dissonance, and all that. At some unidentified tipping point, I shifted from apologetic theism to a-theism, sometime around 20-25 years ago. Political views changed more rapidly-shifting leftward during college and immediately after.

What were you doing at ages 17-20 that facilitated radical change in thinking on your part? What material change had occurred in your life situation to make that the time to strike out for new horizons?

And you can blame the education system of most countries for the young people being like they are. And the legal system is to blame for the schools not having the ability to enforce enough discipline to be able to teach the young. — Sir2u

Yes, the schools are doing a crappy job--but only as a secondary or tertiary knock on effect.

"School" [[i]for 70% of the population, give or take a few[/i]] beyond a minimal levels of literacy and social functioning is no longer important.

Why?

Because faster, cheaper, better, ubiquitous means of training people have been found: MEDIA.

Before the Little Red Schools were built across America, there were the academies and colleges that educated the ambitious upwardly mobile and the elite. With mass immigration and a more complex industrial and business structure, it became necessary to educate large numbers of people in literacy, numeracy, civics, and so forth -- turn them into people capable of functioning in the late 19th and 20th century economy.

The media of radio couldn't really cut it as far as teaching people how to act. It just wasn't vivid enough -- though, it had one feature that mattered (and matters) ubiquity. Television, however, was up to the task, as was film and print media [when people could still read, he said sarcastically]. By the latter third of the 20th century, changes in the economy and a cessation of large-scale immigration meant that schools were no longer needed to prepare people to function adequately--EXCEPT for the elite 10% - 20% of the population who still get first rate education.

For the 80%, school now functioned as a control on the labor pool: keeping people in school (off the labor market) for as long as possible. Keeping youth under observation and corralled is another function. Training them into a lifetime of empty tedium at work and trivial pursuits after work is the primary task.

But mostly, business can now use media (television, cable, internet, social media, all those instruments) to instruct people how to behave in the area that is most important: buying merchandise. What to buy, where, for how much, and how long to keep it drives most media. Content is bait for the advertising. Twitter, FaceBook, and such are essentially games which amuse people while advertising is served to them (or while data for future advertising is collected from them).

Google, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and all the other social media business run on advertising revenue -- there isn't any other money generating activity going on there. Amazon sells stuff. Google may do a great job searching for the source of "we control the vertical and the horizontal" but they don't make money on search. What Google profits from is advertising revenue.

It takes too long to recover it because I have to try and remember the account names and all of the false info(names, my dogs names,places and so on etc.etc . etc.) I gave them. — Sir2u

O what tangled webs we weave
when first we practice to deceive.

How the fuck do they know these things? — Sir2u

THEY control the vertical and the horizontal. Didn't you know that? What sort of failed media observer are you anyway? You're a disgrace!!!

Go to YouBoob and watch the opening of The Outer Limits:

There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical ... You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to – The Outer Limits.

None of us were weaned on Aristotle and Plato (speak up if you were), and it is unlikely that many here encountered Greek philosophy in depth until their late teens, at least. By 18, most people have established a style, a mode, of thinking. College (normally) won't re-program our thinking style, though it will greatly enrich it. If you didn't go to college, then on-going reading and thinking is likewise not going to overthrow the basic approach to life one has developed, but will greatly enrich it.

Considering the way you approach the world, which philosopher do you resemble more -- Plato or Aristotle.

Given the milieu in which we live, it would be very surprising if the results were reversed -- that the majority of respondents to the poll thought they were Platonists rather than Aristotelian.

Or is it the case that Aristotelianism is a more "natural" way of thinking?

What sort of world would prefer Plato over Aristotle?

Is it a slur to accuse someone of preferring Plato?

Children are already being born under unusual circumstances which are going to require later, and perhaps difficult, explanations.

Gay men hiring a surrogate woman (maybe even a surrogate man) to breed and bear a child for them could be difficult to explain in the future, especially if the child grows up in a society more hostile towards surrogacy or gay parenthood than anyone expected.

Straight couples using surrogate mothers is already a somewhat contentious issue, especially when the mother is from a developing country, and the parents are quite well off citizens of a developed country.

Some people object to IVF.

Sperm banks (a recent Canadian case) don't always provide accurate information to prospective recipients of the sperm. A recent donor father had a history of serious mental illness. He was described as being brilliant, successful, and very creative. He was none of those things. In fact, he had a criminal record on top of everything else. The sperm bank took his word for his own condition. (How do we know this? The sperm bank accidentally sent the electronic file to the recipient parents. They seem to have problems at that business.)

So, if people can figure out how to tell a child that the reason he or she is bi-polar or schizophrenic is that Mummy and Daddy were defective, and he or she is the child of a mentally ill sperm donor--someone even more defective--I think people can figure out how to tell a child that she was the beneficiary of gene therapy to solve her mother's defective mitochondrial DNA problem.

The genetic lines rolls the dice every time conception occurs. Who knows what long term consequences may result? Probably nothing, but... no one knows.

When it comes to scientists screwing around with DNA, I worry most about their appraisal of their own knowledge. "Yes, we know what we are doing. Nothing can go wrong." is a viewpoint that has gotten us into deep doo doo on a number of occasions. For that very reason, the [western] science establishments is recommending that certain areas of research into genetics should be suspended until risks can be more adequately investigated.

Should people be cloned? Maybe it's possible, maybe it can be done safely, but that doesn't mean it should be done. Can faulty DNA be fixed, once and for all time? Maybe, but we want to know for sure that the cure will not be worse than the disease.

Is all this high-tech stuff ethical? My guess that whatever we think now, it will be deemed ethically appropriate in the future. True, the Catholic Church (and some others) refuse to accept the virtue of birth control, family planning, and so on, but most religious organizations accept it. The group that might have the biggest problems are Mormons who conduct marriages of long-dead ancestors. How they will handle a three-way, don't know.

Ah, that makes sense. I haven't used FB enough to notice that.

Personally, I don't care. If FB went broke tomorrow, that would be fine by me.

It is objectively better for the environment and would help alleviate the symptoms of overpopulation. It takes much more land to support food animals than it does vegetation. The majority of crops currently being grown ends up as feed for animals. With more vegetation available, we have more to use to create reusable energy. But you tell people that, and they still don't care. World problems and the environment are problems that can be put off for now and they don't need to take direct responsibility for the situation. — swstephe

Animal cruelty has the advantage of sentimental loading. (And sentiment does not trivialize the issue, it just adds another dimension.) Most of us personally commit no gratuitous animal cruelty. The cruelty is performed remotely. We can (and should) prefer that animals be treated well, but treating the chickens kindly doesn't solve the environmental problem. The environmental issue is approaching the level of an existential threat.

But you tell people that and they still don't care. World problems and the environment are problems that can be put off for now. — swstephe

Well... I think that was yesterday... Today, the problems of the environment are visibly coming home and roosting. It isn't "people" that seem not to care (though they should be more worried, and politically charged up, definitely). It's at the higher, larger decision making level that there are people who can't bring themselves to act positively on the problem. Take major shareholders in coal and oil: They may intellectually recognize that the planet is heading towards a worldwide disaster, but... closing down their mines. wells. and factories means the end to their wealth! That's very hard for them to do. It's easy for me to do, because I don't have a single oil well in my backyard. Not one. No coal mines, either, the last time I checked.

It's easy for me to tell people to stop driving and take the bus, bike, or walk. I don't drive (can't) so no problem. People who drive don't want to switch from 15 minutes to get to work to 90 minutes on a bus. I don't blame them. I hated those long bus rides intensely. In many cities (this one, among them) one can travel many routes faster on a bike than a bus.

Society has to make it easier for the average person to make the kind of decisions I think they know would be good. But those decisions are discouraged higher up by the auto industry, by the highway industry, by the fuel industry, all who are going to lose the cash cow if we make necessary changes.

Taking care of the environment (the land, plants, wild animals, food production, fresh water, domestic animals, ourselves, etc.) is an existential imperative. Millions of people are applying poisons to their lawns and gardens with no benefit beyond the cosmetic. Very bad, not moral. Hundreds of millions of acres of crops are being sprayed with herbicides and pesticides that are literally killing off the environment -- wild flowers, wild and domestic bees, birds, reptiles, frogs, toads, fish, etc. Very bad, not moral.

The real problem with eating beef and pork, especially, is global warming and environmental degradation (from intense feed-crop production). Animal production isn't the #1 cause -- that honor goes to fossil fuel. But it's a contributing cause.

With developed and developing countries faced with mounting health effects of obesity, diabetes, depression and inflammatory diseases. — swstephe

No doubt, obesity and diabetes are past epidemic levels, but "meat eating" per se accounts for those as efficiently as too many refined carbohydrates and sugars. Too much fat? Yes, of both kinds, animal and plant derived (and too many hydrogenated fats as well). More protein than necessary? Most likely. I'm not sure where depression fits in here, and the same for inflammatory diseases. There is a connection between diet and inflammatory disease, not sure what it is.

You'll have to explain a bit for me.

Eating meat is natural enough, but most modern men (people) are not driven by guilt-expunging hunger to kill animals. The killing is done long before we see the raw meat, even we even come that close to a kill. Then we see pictures of animals with faces, we project feelings onto them, and then we feel guilt.

A well-cared-for dairy cow isn't subjected to much suffering. Neither are well-cared-for pigs. Poultry get the short end of the stick, but they also have the smallest brains to contemplate their sorry state. Geese? Wild geese have a little bit more going for them upstairs, but most domestic geese are raised outdoors. Turkeys? Wild turkeys are brighter than domestic ones, but not many wild turkeys end up in the food supply.

The slaughter house is the place where horrible things can happen in-between their arrival and their death. We have the means to make sure animals are not just probably dead, but are definitely dead before their heads are removed or their veins/arteries are opened for bleeding.

When you get down to it, killing an animal is a brute process. Before mass slaughter, animals were killed one by one as well as could be managed by whoever was doing it. It wasn't always pretty,

Same here -- haven't seen a Bergman film in a long time, but yes, similar feel. I used to groove on this sort of thing. In my youth I needed to see existential angst on the screen so I would know how to do it properly.

I can see that this discussion is going to be mostly too high concept for my Calvinist upbringing.

I like your interpretation. Jews don't take the story as a sign of man's perpetual damnation.

Harvey Cox, an American theologian, writes in his book "On Not Leaving It To The Snake" that Adam and Eve were meant to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge, but that this would only be a good thing if they made the decision themselves. Instead, they were seduced into eating it by the Serpent. The snack of knowledge therefore had to backfire.

It had to backfire, because the story of Adam's and Eve's fall reads like the typical fairy tale: "Here's the deal: You can go everywhere you want in the forest, but you MUST NEVER STEP INTO THE GROVE OF SACRED ASH TREES." So our hapless hero and heroine wander about the forest, and sure enough they come to the grove of sacred ash trees. In the middle of the grove is a fountain of sparkling water (it's naturally carbonated--Perrier--) and the heroine suddenly is terribly thirsty and must MUST have a sip of the water. She carries on hysterically until the hero says, "OK I'll get you a drink of water." What a bitch, he thinks. As soon as he steps into the circle of sacred ash trees he turns into a stag, and runs away.

Maybe, after much folderol, he will be turned back into a hero and maybe they will live happily ever after. Or maybe he decides stags are better company than hysterical maidens.

Adam and eve stay human, but the deal they get in life soon turns shitty after they eat the fruit. God, in place of the witch, says "I told you not to do it, and you did it anyway. Now you have to be punished -- otherwise, what kind of limp-wristed fairy tale would this be? Out, Out, Out. Raus! Raus!

And forever after it's been one damned thing after another for the children of Adam.

political correctness — Agustino

The judgmentalness that constitutes political correctness is another sort of behavior altogether (in my opinion). If I habitually refer to Negros or Blacks or colored people (they have been "properly" called all three at various times) as niggers, I will be accused of using a racist slur. It won't do any good to explain that there are people who are 'niggers', like it or not, a term recognized by Negros, blacks, and colored people as a referent to no-count, disreputable, members of the race. (Hmmm, should "niggers" be capitalized? Colored People? Trailer Trash? White Trash? Honkies? Cocksuckers? Or not?)

The agents who police the boundaries of political correctness are alert to any suggestion that a racial or ethnic group, as it exists in a particular place, may not be completely equal to another racial or ethnic group. The PC police agents need to whitewash glaringly obvious deficiencies among various groups. Therefore, it is racist to remark on how well Asians do in school. What! Does someone suppose that Asians are (gasp) superior? (Which means everybody else is inferior...) Well no, not really.

It is considered racist (and politically incorrect) to associate the culture of specific racial groups with the race or ethnic group that spawned a particular culture. Asians--and Jews--do well in academics because Asian and Jewish parents, and the communities to which they belong place a high priority on academic performance, and expect their children to perform from the get go (not that they all become famous violinists).

Clearly most Blacks/Colored People/Negroes in this country do not, for the most part, place the same priority on academic excellence. They fail to prize academic success because their experience has been that their schools, teaching their children, do not produce academic excellence. Black parents are not in a position to overcome these deficiencies (without strategic exterior input of some kind).

Welcome to The Philosophy Forum. How did you find us, and decide that we would be a good sounding board?

There are certainly plenty of people around who will argue that 'the world' is unreal, and is a projection of the mind. Or, that they are the only person that exists, and every thing and person are figments of their imagination. How close we come to contact with 'the real world' is debatable. I don't find these lines of thinking productive.

The world is real, it persists after we die, and (I suppose) closely resembles the world our senses tell me exists.

The film effectively presents the view of the solipsistic view through the monologue of the dying man; the other characters are anchored in the physical world of things -- prepping vegetables, cooking stoves, balsa wood planes, and the objects of ordinary life. Can't say I liked the screechy soundtrack.

In the end, you came down on a world independent of our senses, our words, our depictions, our projections. The father is dead, the coffin has arrived. As central to the universe as we think we are, we are not around to observe that without us the world keeps spinning just as it did before. (Dammit -- I wasn't the center of the universe after all.)

Is being judgemental necessarily wrong? Where did you get this from? I think being judgemental is good if your judgement is correct, and bad if your judgement is bad. — Agustino

Yes, 'being judgmental' is a bad trait because 'being judgmental' is an idiom meaning "an unconsidered, snap reaction" that will normally be taken as a negative statement. 'Being judgmental' isn't the same thing as 'being reflective and thoughtful'.

In heated conversation snap reactions may predictable happen, but shouldn't occur in written communication.

Not really... what versions of Christianity have you learned this from? It must be some form of Protestant or Calvinist versions. — Agustino

Bingo. I was raised in, and pursued with Methodist diligence, a Protestant, Calvinist view of the world. Sometime around 35 years ago (at age 35) I decided to ditch my religious heritage. Easier said than done. It was like trying to make DOS look like a MAC operating system -- it didn't work. Calvinism is still operating underneath all the replacement systems. It could be worse.

Bertrand Russell noted that atheists generally bear the stamp of the religion they rejected. Seems to be true. Officially, I don't believe in original sin or the rest of it, but when I think about or discuss Christianity, it's the Calvinist view that comes to the fore. Yes, it feels a bit schizoid sometimes.

I agree. — Agustino

So, we can agree to agree.

Regarding failed states and collapsed societies and foreigners:

The Somali peoples have lived in the horn of Africa since ancient times. I don't know much about the place, but we have a lot of Somalis living in Minneapolis. They are most likely here to stay. They arrived with what seems like an intact culture. Their country of origin, however, is currently a mess. It's a failed state. A people can survive a failed state, and fairly severe disruption. Why has Somalia been disrupted in the 20th century? Ask the Italians, British, Russians, and Americans who have all taken a turn at screwing things up there. And ask the Somalis and Ethiopians too.

As for the Somalis, they tend to be about as insular as many of the non-Christian immigrant groups. Their second and third generations are English speakers, but are Moslems in the Land of German Lutherans and Catholics. Personally, I don't see any great advantage to this diversity -- its just a worse version of conservative theism, as far as I am concerned.

To be fair, the German Lutherans were once kind of insular and didn't speak English in their first and second generations either. Eventually they became the numerically and culturally dominant group, even more than Scandinavians.

Decadence is marked by:
Defensiveness
Pessimism
Materialism
Frivolity
An influx of foreigners
The Welfare State
A weakening of religion.

Defensiveness, Pessimism, Materialism, and Frivolity seem more like features of individuals than societies, and in any case, don't seem to have any obvious connection to societal or national decadence.

Maybe an influx of foreigners -- but it would depend how they arrive. If the foreigners are mostly an army arriving in tanks, bombers, and troop carriers -- that could be very bad. On the other hand, an influx of foreigners might be invigorating. I would prefer a more controlled southern border, but there is no doubt that all the folks arriving from south of the border have invigorated a lot of commercial dead spots in towns where they have settled.

Welfare State? Fiddlesticks. That's just your pet axe getting ground.

Weakening of religion? Maybe, in as much as a religion is part of a cohesive culture. If it isn't part of a cohesive culture, then its decline won't matter.

Decadence is due to 'Too long a period of wealth and power'

What is "too long'? Rome was an intact, functioning, vital concern for a long time. Was that 'too long'? It's just not a actionable valuation.

Selfishness, Love of money, and The loss of a sense of duty

Again, that seems more individual than collective, and traits such as 'selfishness' and 'love of money' are present in all societies from the get go.

(h) Their falls are diverse, because they are largely the result of external causes.

If societies fall from external causes, than what difference does the decadence of the citizens make to the outcome?

(i) History should be taught as the history of the human race, though of course with emphasis on the history of the student’s own country.

Well, I suppose so! What else would one teach in history other than the history of the human race?

If I were going to describe "decadence" in a society, my list would look like this:

• a long term decline in essential economic activity (agriculture, production of necessities, and basic goods)
• a long term decline in the quality of governance involving
  - failure of the government to raise sufficient funds to operate
  - failure of the government to effectively protect the country internally
  - failure of the government to respond to acute problems (floods, famine, epidemics, etc.)
  - failure of the government to maintain an adequate defense for normal (not overwhelming) external threats
• a decline in the quality of social and cultural reproduction (population decline, inadequate education, decreasing longevity, deterioration of the preservation and renewal of cultural resources (literature, drama, music, etc.)
• a falling birthrate and a falling child survival rate
• a decline in mutual community support activities (a breakdown in the 'ties that bind' people together: festivals, religions, mutual aid, social interaction, accepted responsibilities, and so forth
• increasing anomie, alienation, isolation, fear of one another, criminal activity by people previously unlikely to engage in criminal activity, etc.
  
  In other words, a decadent society is one which is rapidly failing to operate effectively for its own good.
  
  What about morality?
  
  Morality is a critical element in the mutuality of community bonds. A well-functioning society performs mutual service as a matter of course. Mutual service is considered a fundamental good, an obligation: make sure old folks are not neglected; that the young are not allowed to publicly flout community standards (talking about 6 year olds, here, not 26 year olds); make sure the sick get cared for; mutual respect for families; material contributions to the common good (support the school, the church, the fire department, the play ground, the annual fund drive for social services, the parks, community gardens, etc.).
  
  A well-functioning society has clear standards of behavior AND can tolerate a certain amount of deviation. Every community has members who do not conform to some accepted standard but don't count as a threat. There might be the one Christian Scientist in a town of Roman Catholics. That's tolerable. There might be people who drink too much in a town of abstainers. That's lamentable, but tolerable -- up to a point. There are going to be bachelors and spinsters in a town of married people. "That's sad" but tolerable. There may be a socialist in a town of republicans. It will be uncomfortable for the socialist, but he's tolerable. Same for militant feminists, vegans, cat loving dog haters, and so on. They won't win popularity contests but they won't be lynched (well, usually not).
  
  Many ordinary, even conservative, communities actually show a surprising level of tolerance for social deviation. I'm not convinced that diversity itself makes a society that much better, but tolerance of diversity is certainly a sign of robust confidence.
  
  IN OTHER WORDS, SOCIETIES FALL APART FROM WITHIN. Of course, one can destroy a society from without -- literally bomb it to smithereens. We know how to do that. A few H bombs here and there and a small country won't grow back. More H bombs and bigger countries will go away for good. Use enough H bombs and we will all go together when we go, every Hottentot and every Eskimo. There will be no more misery when the world is our rotisserie, we will all fry together when we fry. Sing out a Te Deum when you see that ICBM and the party will be 'come as you are'.

His primary concern is actually overcoming the worthlessness of humanity. The praise of original sin here is no coincidence. Agustino is looking at the lack of joy (or at least a perceived) lack of joy in people's lives and is then throwing out a whole lot of behaviours which are supposedly causing the lack of joy. He is so investing in saying who is wrong and what is wrong because he views joy a question of overcoming one's worthlessness.

His much vaunted "moral decay" is really the loss of a culture which views the individual as essentially worthlessness and in need of saving. That's why he so invested in saying, commanding and being seen to be tough immorality. He is lamenting the lack of demands put on people in Western culture. Aside for whether any individual is happy of not, his problem is we think we are worth too much. We've eliminated the joy of being "saved" from our own worthlessness, at least amongst the "liberal elite" and anyone who shares similar cultural values. We've replaced the what Agustino calls the "spiritual" with ourselves. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I disagree with this, it's simply not a correct description of my position. — Agustino

... original sin refers to the statistical, probabilistic, and NOT inherent behaviors of people. — Agustino

Agustino, I can't say with certainty that The Willow... has precisely described your overt beliefs in the quoted statement, but I think he has put his finger on some inchoate beliefs that are common to people who share your world view. Much of what you say makes more sense when viewed in the context of his appraisal.

You might not like this appraisal, but I don't consider it negative. You are as entitled to our understanding of what you believe, (without any obligation to agree with it) as we are to your understanding (without any obligation to agree with it). Both of our belief sets are derived from cultural lodes which we separately mine for gold.

BTW, I disagree with your characterization of original sin. Original sin has nothing to do with the statistical likelihood of sin, or probabilistic depravity. Rather, original sin is about the dead certainty of our fallen state and the necessity of our moral failure (in the context of Christian doctrine).

It seems to me that the founders of Christianity wanted to contrast our totally fallen state to the absolute salvation which Christ offered. Sometimes it seems like the church fathers unnecessarily cursed mankind for the sake of high contrast, and at other times it seems like they hit the nail on the had. Sometimes our species seems hell bent for leather to be as bad as we can possibly be--usually acting collectively, such as during the Holocaust.

On this point (about to be stated) we are going to part company: I consider original sin a doctrinal stumbling block because it frequently leads Christians to focus on their favorite depravity -- in your case, it's promiscuous sexual activity; in my case, it's promiscuous economic activity. You see sin in sex, I see sin in economic activity. Your favorite sinner is a promiscuous faggot, my favorite sinner is an upright capitalist.

Yes, sexual debauchery definitely was also in the list. I highly advise you to start by reading this article: http://people.uncw.edu/kozloffm/glubb.pdf — Agustino

OK, I'll check this article out -- but it is a fairly long article, I'm heading off to a funeral right now (just ushering -- never met the man) and I may say something before having the alleged enlightenment to be derived therefrom.