Church's Policy on Surrogacy - Looking for Input

[SeekingUnderstanding]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

I can't go along with this characterization.  If I say "California is on the west coast of the continental United States according to SeekingUnderstanding," the implication is that California's location is contingent on your subjective opinion.  That does not work, because California's location is not a matter of your opinion.  Your statement is an observation about reality, 

Nor is the sex of Jackie Blankenship a matter of my opinion, but of reality and biology.

Biological, sociological, and legal reasons, in addition to religious ones, are - our should be - part of this discussion.

That you call "biology" a "paper thin wrapper around a religious edict" is particularly interesting.

I have not written about Jackie Blankenship. Please do not put words in my mouth about a person I have not discussed, and do not use that person as a mascot for a conclusion I have not drawn.

What I have said is how sex is classified at the most basic level: two reproductive roles, small gametes and large gametes. Disorders of sex development sit inside that binary. They are not a third sex, a spectrum of sexes, or proof that sex is a costume. A developmental pathway can be disrupted. The pathway is still male or female.

CAIS is a known example. The karyotype is 46,XY. Internal gonads are testes. The body does not respond to androgens, so the external phenotype develops along female lines. There are no ovaries and no uterus. That is a disorder of male sexual development that produces a female-typical body on the outside. It is not “sex is a spectrum.” It is a medical fact about receptors.

If by “male” we mean the developmental system organized toward small gametes, then yes: CAIS is on the male side of the binary, disrupted. If “male,” in reference to a person with CAIS but who has been raised as a woman, means a "man" in ordinary speech—body, rearing, identity—then arguably no. Calling every person with CAIS “a male” as if they were indistinguishable from an ordinary man does not fully address the situation.

That is why the Jackie gotcha fails if you keep the layers apart. You can say CAIS is 46,XY DSD / failed masculinization and that the person is a woman in the ordinary, legal, and social sense and that this rare condition does not make sex a spectrum or turn two men into a mother-and-father household. Those sentences do not cancel each other.

The daughter.

The child was carried by Jackie’s sister. There is a gestational mother in the story. There is also a man who is the husband and father. This is not “two men, no mother, by design.” It is a rare infertility plus a sister who gestated. Using that to claim that on my view the girl is “deprived of a mother” is a smear. I have been talking about households structured so that a child has two fathers or two mothers and no parent of the other sex. A CAIS woman married to a man is not that household.

“Paper-thin wrapper around a religious edict.”

Gametes, dimorphism, and DSDs-as-disorders are not a temple recommend. You can reject the religion and still have to say whether sex is binary and whether CAIS is a third sex. If your only play is “name a woman with CAIS until SMAC looks heartless,” you are not answering the classification. You are trying to make the classification unsayable.

People with DSDs deserve accuracy and decency. They do not owe anyone a veto on the two-sex design, and they do not convert a same-sex couple into a mother-and-father home.

Fallacies:

• Straw man. Attributes to you a specific verdict about Jackie you never gave.
• Anecdote as wrecking ball. One DSD is treated as if it refuted the binary and the marriage argument.
• Equivocation. Developmental/gametic sex, legal/social “woman,” and “mother” as caregiver are collapsed.
• False equivalence. CAIS woman + husband + sister-surrogate = two men raising a child.
• Poisoning the well. “Paper-thin wrapper” skips the biological claim and goes to motive.

Thanks,

-Smac

I'm sorry, but you’re the one using biology as a “reason” to discriminate. You're the one hell bent on saying sex and gender are one and the same and defined soley by gamete size. Jackie in your world view is a biological male and sex sex and gender are the same (I thought) you’d say she was male. To quote you "Biology militates against same-sex behavior.  It is a genetic dead end.  The plumbing does not work.  Sex utterly and categorically lacks any procreative capacity or intent or purpose.  Zero.  Zilch.  This is unlike heterosexual sex, which categorically does have procreative capacity and intent and purpose...." People with CAIS have internal testes and therefore are a genetic dead end. Is that the "reason" for the discrimination against gay people or not? Perhaps it's just a paper thin wrapper on a religious directive after all.

And this is so bizarre from you:

Quote

. If “male,” in reference to a person with CAIS but who has been raised as a woman, means a "man" in ordinary speech—body, rearing, identity—then arguably no. Calling every person with CAIS “a male” as if they were indistinguishable from an ordinary man does not fully address the situation.

That is why the Jackie gotcha fails if you keep the layers apart. You can say CAIS is 46,XY DSD / failed masculinization and that the person is a woman in the ordinary, legal, and social sense and that this rare condition does not make sex a spectrum or turn two men into a mother-and-father household. Those sentences do not cancel each other.

So there is an ordinary, legal, and social sense about being a woman and mother that transcends biology? Who would have guessed. Glad to have you on the record here. Referring to "identity" Wow.

Edited 19 hours ago by SeekingUnderstanding

[Analytics]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Ergo "science" has established that God does not exist?

Sigh. 

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

This would also apply to persons such as yourself, correct?

Yes. Everyone is subject to cognitive biases. The difference is whether somebody uses their intelect to rationalize believing what they find themselves believing, or whether they use their intellect to look past their cognitive biases and get to the truth. This is the difference between between Alma 32/Moroni 10 and the scientific method. This is the difference between motivated reasoning and rationality. This is the difference between faith and skepticism. 

Edited 18 hours ago by Analytics

[Analytics]

 

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Yes. That is an accurate description of the line.

For Andy and Abigail, sex is Y until they are husband and wife; then it is X, including if the purpose that night is to strengthen the bond and even though they cannot conceive. For Bob and Brady, sex remains Y if they marry under civil law, because they are not a husband and a wife. Love, honesty, commitment, and a license are not what move an act from Y to X on this ethic.

Why marriage changes one pair and not the other.

Marriage here is not a sticker that makes any two adults’ sex licit. It is the covenant that joins a man and a woman. Andy and Abigail are already that kind of pair. The ceremony puts their sexual use of that pair inside the covenant. Bob and Brady are not that kind of pair. A court clerk cannot supply a sex they do not have.

The morally relevant difference is not “this couple feels less love” or “this couple has a license and that one does not.” You stipulated those equal. The difference is the kind of union and the kind of act. A man and a woman are the pair whose bodies constitute the generative kind, even when this woman has no ovaries. Two men are not an infertile instance of that kind. They are a different kind. Inability to use their own gametes together is what the two couples share. Sharing a disability of generation does not make them the same sort of couple.

I know this is what you believe. What I'm looking for is the reason why you believe this. You said "I can articulate a reasoned basis for my position," right? What's the reasoned position? You've explained where you draw the line. But you haven't explained why you draw it there.

According to you, out of the universe of real-world (legally) married couples who cannot have kids, some may ethically have sex and others may not. You do this by splitting couples who cannot have kids into two groups: those that can have kids, and those that can't.

Saying some couples who can't have kids "are of the 'kind' that really can have kids" seems awfully self-contradictory to me, but I understand that is the line you draw. The line itself is well-defined; no need to lecture me about your platonic ideals. The question remains: why draw the line there? Is it because of prejudice, or is it because of reason? If it is reason, what is the rational, the ethical reason for drawing it where you draw it?

Edited 18 hours ago by Analytics

[Analytics]

2 hours ago, smac97 said:

A statement of cause is not, by itself, a fallacy. “Many people first hear Moses 1:39 in a family or a ward” can be true. “Some religious teaching is manipulative” can be true. That is not what you used the sentence to do.

You used origin as a verdict. The run was: everything in Proposition 1 is false --> reason does not lead there --> sociology and psychological manipulation do. The third clause is doing the work of the first. That is the genetic move: how the belief was produced is treated as showing that the belief is false or beneath reason. Naming a cause is not a fallacy. Substituting the cause for a rebuttal is.

The math analogy assumes what is in dispute, so class question-begging there. We have an independent, shared method that makes “2 + 2 = 5” fail. We do not have a shared algorithm that makes “God sent prophets” fail the way an arithmetic error fails. Calling theism “2 + 2 = 5” is not a demonstration. It is the conclusion again, with a chalkboard costume. If you already know God is false, of course “reason” will not “lead” there—by your definition of reason. That is question-begging, not a proof that I committed no fallacy.

You make a fair point that I really had two points wrapped together. One point was that rationality leads to naturalism. The other point was that cognitive biases are the basis for your underlying beliefs.

But stating that those two things are my beliefs aren't logical arguments. I wasn't attempting to prove anything. I was simply telling you what I believe.

2 hours ago, smac97 said:

A while back I compiled a list of what you above call "assertions of fact" and which I think are question-begging of the highest order...

Here's the thing. Your response to Carroll simply shows you don't understand the strength and scope of his arguments. He isn't merely talking about things as crude as spoon-bending. He's talking about things as subtle as making the slightest nudge to an electron that could even slightly change the probability of a neuron firing. Your efforts to discredit these results are great examples of the motivated reasoning I've been talking about.

If you study cognitive neuroscience, you come to exactly the same results, with its independent very high level of confidence, from a totally different basket of evidence. They've done a ton of research on split-brain patients that make the idea of a "ghost in the machine" implausible. 

Neither of these things disprove the existence of "God", in a broad, intentionally ill-defined kind of way. But the Core Theory and Cognitive Neuroscience do lead to exactly the same result: the idea of some sort of "spirit" that drives our bodies just isn't plausible. 

It reminds me of the theory of evolution. Darwin recognized that for evolution to be true, the earth had to be really, really (i.e. billions) of years old. But the problem was, nobody thought at the time that there was any way the sun could contain enough energy to burn for that long; they thought it could have energy to burn for a few tens of millions of years old, max. But then we learned about nuclear fusion, and this was suddenly plausible. Then we looked deeply and geology, and it turns out there is overwhelming evidence that the earth is in fact 4.whatever billion years old.  

Now, you could say that none of this proves that Jesus was wrong when he told Joseph Smith the temporal age of the earth is only 7,000 years (D&C 77:6). Or you could say that "temporal age" means something esoteric or "7,000 years" means something symbolic, or whatever else you want to do in order to salvage D&C 77. But all this would be motivated reasoning.

The strength of my position is how so many independent branches of science are so well connected now. They all paint the same picture. They all support each other. And the resulting picture is a universe where the tenets of classic Mormon dogma just aren't plausible. We keep on getting further light and knowledge. And it keeps pointing in the same direction, reinforcing this viewpoint. Let me know if you'd like a list of books to read.

Anyway, you specifically laid out "Proposition 1" in a few short paragraphs. You believe in God. You believe in Jesus. You believe in prophets and revelation and so forth. And you specifically asked me to respond to this. Telling you what I believe with the same frankness that you told me what you believe isn't some sort of logical fallacy. It is responding to the question you asked.

2 hours ago, smac97 said:

Fallacies (theirs, this round)

• Question-begging. “Reason” is defined so that it cannot reach God; then “reason doesn’t lead there” is announced as a fact.
• False analogy. Arithmetic, which we share, is treated as the model for a metaphysical dispute we do not share.
• Genetic fallacy still in play if origin is offered as the ground for calling the beliefs false.
• Category error. A causal story about believers is treated as a proof about God.

...

Fallacies

• Question-begging / persuasive definition. “Correct rationality” is stipulated to output naturalism.
• Moving the goalposts. Origin story → “true reason leads only here.”
• Equivocation. Methodological naturalism in science is treated as metaphysical naturalism.
• No-true-Scotsman. Anyone who reasons to God “wasn’t really applying rationality.”

 

Fallacies

• Bare assertion. Denial is presented as if it were a finding.
• Straw man. Involved God → celestial hall monitor of the bedroom.
• Equivocation. “Your religion’s God” and “any God” are not kept apart.
• Talking past. Blunt metaphysics is used to skip the arguments that were not only theological.

...

Fallacies

• Straw man. You as rejecter of Bible, 132, and twentieth-century prophets.
• Composition. Some false or harsh sexual teaching → prophets as a class unreliable on sex.
• Equivocation on “eternal.” Unchanging youth rhetoric vs. standing law with changing administration.
• Motte-and-bailey (projected). Accuses you of a maximal inerrancy you have not claimed.
• Presentism. Every prior culture’s packaging is treated as proof there was never a through-line.
• Poisoning the well. “Crap” as a substitute for reading the texts as you have actually read them.

It's been a long time now, but how many people remember a bygone poster who was hyper-focused on talking and talking and talking about how sinful he thought homosexuality was, and how convinced he was that he could logically prove homosexual sex was morally wrong? If you remember who I'm talking about, you'll also remember that he loved listing logical fallacies. Regardless of what you said, he'd throw a laundry list of logical fallacies back at you. It came across as a mental defense mechanism to avoid engaging with others' opinions.

Has anybody heard from Wade Englund lately? How's he doing?

Edited 17 hours ago by Analytics

[Analytics]

2 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

And this is so bizarre from you:

So there is an ordinary, legal, and social sense about being a woman and mother that transcends biology? Who would have guessed. Glad to have you on the record here. Referring to "identity" Wow.

My thoughts exactly. 

[smac97]

46 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Quote

Yes. That is an accurate description of the line.

For Andy and Abigail, sex is Y until they are husband and wife; then it is X, including if the purpose that night is to strengthen the bond and even though they cannot conceive. For Bob and Brady, sex remains Y if they marry under civil law, because they are not a husband and a wife. Love, honesty, commitment, and a license are not what move an act from Y to X on this ethic.

Why marriage changes one pair and not the other.

Marriage here is not a sticker that makes any two adults’ sex licit. It is the covenant that joins a man and a woman. Andy and Abigail are already that kind of pair. The ceremony puts their sexual use of that pair inside the covenant. Bob and Brady are not that kind of pair. A court clerk cannot supply a sex they do not have.

The morally relevant difference is not “this couple feels less love” or “this couple has a license and that one does not.” You stipulated those equal. The difference is the kind of union and the kind of act. A man and a woman are the pair whose bodies constitute the generative kind, even when this woman has no ovaries. Two men are not an infertile instance of that kind. They are a different kind. Inability to use their own gametes together is what the two couples share. Sharing a disability of generation does not make them the same sort of couple.

I know this is what you believe. What I'm looking for is the reason why you believe this. You said "I can articulate a reasoned basis for my position," right? What's the reasoned position? You've explained where you draw the line. But you haven't explained why you draw it there.

Well, my previous post laid out several propositions that include a lot of the "why."  The above quote explains my reasoning.  At some substantial length, in fact.  Here are my propositions:

• Proposition #1: Our Involved Heavenly Father
• Proposition #2: Sex is Important
• Proposition #3: Sexual Ethics are Important
• Proposition #4: Everyone has Sexual Ethics / Parameters / Boundaries
• Proposition #5: Latter-day Saints are Entitled to Articulate an X/Y Differentiation
• Proposition #6: The Law of Chastity is a Reasonable Basis for Sexual Ethics
• Proposition #7: Treating the Law of Chastity as "Bigotry" is Unreasonable

I know you disagree with Proposition 1.  I respect that, but I don't think you can take that disagreement and say "You haven't presented your reasoning."  I think I have done just that.

I think you probably agree with Proposition 2, Proposition 3, and Proposition 4.  These are not, in my view, necessarily axiomatic, but they are pretty close to it.  Sex and sexual ethics are important because it is the means of procreation, because emotions associated with sex are often powerful, because it can be one of the most beneficial and most harmful elements of the human experience, because sex cannot function without limiting principles (such that we must differentiate between appropriate and inappropriate expressions of sex), because of its association with having and raising children, and so on.  I think my posts have made these pretty clear, so Proposition 2 and Proposition 3 have the "why."

As for Proposition 4 ("Everyone has Sexual Ethics / Parameters / Boundaries"), this seems effectively axiomatic.  Apart from the most utterly depraved of us, the vast, overwhelming majority of the human population of this planet lives in accordance with laws, custom, traditions, etc. which differentiate between appropriate and in appropriate sexual behaviors.  Rape, sexual abuse, abuse of children.  These are, I think, effectively ubiquitously placed in Y and not X.  But if you need a few more reasons, here you go:

Everyone differentiates X from Y because engaging in sexual behavior without the other person's consent (rape) is fundamentally wrong and inappropriate.  Consent is, or should be, an essential component of the sexual act.  Historically there have been some cultures and traditions that do not give consent sufficient regard, and some of those continue to exist today.  Overwhelmingly, though, societies, groups and individuals now agree to and endorse some set of sexual ethics.

• Do you agree or disagree with Proposition 2 ("Sex is Important"), Proposition 3 ("Sexual Ethics are Important"), and Proposition 4 Everyone has Sexual Ethics / Parameters / Boundaries")?

As for Proposition 5 ("Latter-day Saints are Entitled to Articulate an X/Y Differentiation"), I'm not really sure where you land.  For me, the answer is that this proposition is obviously correct.  I'm not sure about you.  You strongly dislike the Church and regularly speak against it, including its teachings about sexual ethics.  Your worldview presupposes, and apparently cannot tolerate divergence from, the idea that God does not exist, that revelation and spirits don't exist, that "science" has proven/disproven these things, that a man can "become" a woman by "identifying" as one, that there should not be any limiting principles as to who can go into sex-segregated spaces, that you are okay with this lack as resulting in the de facto and de jure eradication of sex-segregated spaces, and a few other things that I find difficult to reconcile with your intellect.  I think you're quite smart.  I don't understand how and why your rhetorical position cannot tolerate divergence from conclusions that are not empirically proven/disproven, and instead treats your conclusory say-so as definitively establishing the Truth of Things.  

In the end, though, I think most fair-minded and rational people would say "Yes, Latter-day Saints are entitled to articulate an X/Y differentiation, that is, a sexual ethic that differentiates between appropriate and inappropriate sexual behavior." 

• Do you agree or disagree with this postulation ("Latter-day Saints are entitled to articulate an X/Y differentiation, that is, a sexual ethic that differentiates between appropriate and inappropriate sexual behavior")? 

I suspect you disagree with Proposition 6 and Proposition 7.  I would like to listen to what you have to say about these.

46 minutes ago, Analytics said:

According to you, out of the universe of real-world (legally) married couples who cannot have kids, some may ethically have sex and others may not.  You do this by splitting couples who cannot have kids into two groups: those that can have kids, and those that can't.

This is not an accurate characterization of my position.  That is not the split.

I have not divided infertile couples into “ones who can have kids and ones who can’t.” That sentence is a caricature of the argument. The split is kind of pair, not a fertility test administered couple by couple.

A man and a woman are the kind of pair whose sexual union is the generative kind. Some of those pairs cannot conceive this time or ever in this body—no ovaries, menopause, vasectomy, age. That is a fact about an instance. It does not change the kind. The act is still the kind of act that belongs to husband and wife.

Two men are not an infertile instance of that kind. They are a different kind of pair. There is no generative type there to be blocked. “Cannot mix their own gametes” is something both pairs can say. Sharing a negative does not make them the same sort.

So: some legally married couples who cannot have children may have sex on this ethic, and some may not. That is true. The reason is not “I secretly reclassified the fertile ones.” The reason is that only one of those marriages is a husband and a wife. You can reject that. You cannot turn it into “you said infertile people are fertile.”

Assuming you disagree with Proposition 6 ("The Law of Chastity is a Reasonable Basis for Sexual Ethics"), I hope you will elaborate. 

• What is it about Proposition 6 that places the Law of Chastity entirely outside the boundaries of reasonableness?

Assuming you disagree with Proposition 7 ("Treating the Law of Chastity as 'Bigotry' is Unreasonable"), I hope you will elaborate. 

• What criteria do you use to determine that a given sexual ethic is "bigoted?"

Fallacies

• Straw man. Treats kind vs. instance as “splitting the infertile into fertile and infertile.”
• Equivocation. “Cannot have kids” used as if it named one moral class.
• False equivalence. Infertile man–woman marriage = two men.

46 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Saying some couples who can't have kids "are of the 'kind' that really can have kids" seems awfully self-contradictory to me, but I understand that is the line you draw.  The line itself is well-defined; no need to lecture me about your platonic ideals.

I have not included platonic anything in my reasoning.

And since you continue to misunderstand and/or mischaracterize and/or caricature my actual position, I feel obligated to continue to explain it until we are on the same page.  Not so much that you agree with my position, but that you understand what it is.

46 minutes ago, Analytics said:

The question remains: why draw the line there? Is it because of prejudice, or is it because of reason? If it is reason, what is the rational, the ethical reason for drawing it where you draw it?

Oscar Pistorius has no legs, but he is still "of the kind" of bipedal (two-legged) hominids known as homo sapiens.

The line is not “couples who can have kids vs couples who can’t.” It is “husband and wife vs every other pairing.” You asked for the reason, not another definition.

It is not prejudice. Prejudice is animus toward a person. This is a rule about an act and an institution. Same-sex couples are not being picked out from a field of otherwise identical marriages. They are a different kind of pair because they categorically and entirely lack procreative capacity and cannot function as a mother and father, and any children they raise they necessarily and by design deprive the child of either a mother or a father. Yes, there are some opposite-sex couples who lack procreative capacity, but they are nevertheless still of that first kind. If the only permitted explanation is bigotry, you have defined the conclusion before the reasons start.

The ethical reason, without a seminar on forms:

Sex is not only companionship. In the human species it is the act that joins the two sexes and is capable of generating a child who has a mother and a father. A decent sexual ethic has to say what that act is for, not only who enjoys it. “Consent plus love plus a license” tells you how people feel. It does not tell you what the act is.

A man–woman marriage is the institutional form of that act: the pair whose bodies constitute it, bound so that if a child arrives it has that mother and that father, and so that the same bond can exist when a child does not. Infertility is a defect or a limit in that form. It is not a different form. Two men can love each other. They categorically cannot be a procreative pair. A court stamp does not supply a sex.

That is why marriage moves Andy and Abigail from Y into X and leaves Bob and Brady perennially in Y. Not because Abigail secretly has ovaries I am pretending she has. Because only the first couple is the kind of union the rule is about.

You can call that too narrow. Plenty of people do. Narrow is not the same as irrational/unreasonable, and it is not the same as hate. The competing line—BCA, or BCA plus romance—has some real and significant costs: it has no principled stop once consent and affection are enough, and it treats the generative meaning of the act as optional decoration. I think that is a worse account of what sex is.

If the remaining objection is “God does not exist, so none of this binds,” that is a different argument. It is not a proof that the only leftover motive is prejudice.

Fallacies

• Loaded question. Prejudice or reason, with prejudice as the default.
• Restated straw man. “Kind that really can have kids” after you declined that wording.
• Motive-mongering. Disagreement about the telos of sex treated as animus.

Thanks,

-Smac

[smac97]

2 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

I'm sorry, but you’re the one using biology as a “reason” to discriminate. You're the one hell bent on saying sex and gender are one and the same

I acknowledge that "gender" is ambiguous (I think the ambiguity is, in many instances, calculated and intentional), in that it can be a synonym for "sex" but also refer to things other than sex.

2 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

and defined soley by gamete size.

No.  Males have reproductive systems designed to create a different kind of gamete than the one created by females.  That the two gametes differ in size is not really relevant.

2 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Jackie in your world view is a biological male

Yes.  That is my understanding of how that particular DSD works.

2 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

and sex sex and gender are the same (I thought) you’d say she was male.

Categorically, yes.  Sociologically, she was raised as an "identifies" as a woman, and I have no particular inclination to give much attention to that (you brought her up, I didn't).  I do, however, find the effort of appropriating DSDs as a justification for denying the sexual binary, or to justify the notion that sex is a social construct, to be problematic.

2 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

To quote you "Biology militates against same-sex behavior.  It is a genetic dead end.  The plumbing does not work.  Sex utterly and categorically lacks any procreative capacity or intent or purpose.  Zero.  Zilch.  This is unlike heterosexual sex, which categorically does have procreative capacity and intent and purpose...."

Yes.  Which parts of that do you find to be factually incorrect?

2 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

People with CAIS have internal testes and therefore are a genetic dead end.

Yes.  The second "D" in "DSD" is, after all, "Disorder."  That does not place Jackie into some third category of sex.

2 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Is that the "reason" for the discrimination against gay people or not?

I have not been speaking of "'reason{s}' for the discrimination against gay people."  "Discrimination," after all, "is the unfair or prejudicial treatment of people based on their membership in a particular group, class, or category."

Thus, it is not "discrimination" to prohibit people under 21 from drinking because we as a society have decided to differentiate who can and cannot drink alcohol, and that differentiation is based on broad reasoning and consensus, not "bigotry" or "discrimination."

It is not "discrimination" for a doctor to forego pregnancy tests for a young man because males cannot become pregnant.  That differentiation is based on biological reality, not "bigotry" or "discrimination."

2 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

And this is so bizarre from you:

Quote

If “male,” in reference to a person with CAIS but who has been raised as a woman, means a "man" in ordinary speech—body, rearing, identity—then arguably no. Calling every person with CAIS “a male” as if they were indistinguishable from an ordinary man does not fully address the situation.

That is why the Jackie gotcha fails if you keep the layers apart. You can say CAIS is 46,XY DSD / failed masculinization and that the person is a woman in the ordinary, legal, and social sense and that this rare condition does not make sex a spectrum or turn two men into a mother-and-father household. Those sentences do not cancel each other.

So there is an ordinary, legal, and social sense about being a woman and mother that transcends biology?

No.  There are times when rhetorical convenience predominates over biological precision. Thus, I may choose to treat a person with CAIS as a woman, even though Jackie is biologically male.  DSDs are an extraordinarily rare occurrence.  And they are frequently invoked as rhetorical cover to people who do not have a DSD, and who are instead unequivocally male who want to be seen and treated as women (and vice versa).

Whether to call Caitlyn Jenner, a male who "identifies" as a woman, by "she/her" pronouns is not really a contest I want to address every day.

2 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Who would have guessed. Glad to have you on the record here. Referring to "identity" Wow.

No. Ordinary language does not “transcend biology.” It is shorter than a karyotype.

Again, you brought up Jackie, a person with a very rare DSD.  When people say “woman” or “mother” about someone with CAIS, they are talking about a person with a female-typical body who was raised as a girl and is raising a child. That is how English works. It is not a theory that "identity" writes "sex," and it is not a claim that biology stepped aside. The biology is still 46,XY, testes, androgen-receptor failure. I said that in the same paragraph.

“Identity” in what I wrote was one layer of ordinary speech—how we talk about a person standing in front of us—not a third sex and not “identity über alles.” Please do not quote that word as if I had signed onto the view that sex is a feeling.

Legal “female” on a birth certificate in a CAIS case is a classification of phenotype and rearing, which is how hospitals and clerks handle this rare condition (and I have frequently noted that accommodations for people with DSDs should be part of the discussion as to matters such as sex-segregated spaces). It does not repeal the developmental fact, and it does not license the next inference: therefore two men are a mother and a father, or therefore sex is a spectrum, or that a man can "become" a woman by "identifying" as one, or that the Church's X / Y is uniquely and peculiarly illegitimate and outside the bounds of reasonableness.

Your question, though, does demonstrate why vigilance may need to be more overt and emphatic.  By your reckoning, if I refer to Lia Thomas as "she," then you treat that as a concession that a man can "become" a woman by "identifying" as one.

You wanted a gotcha: either I call Jackie a man in every sentence, or I have admitted that womanhood floats free of the body. Those are not the only two options. Precision is allowed, as are some few departures from precision. Rare DSDs are why we keep the layers. They are not a warrant to treat sex as a costume or marriage as any two adults.  If you can only advance your perspective by wearing others out and then relying to rhetorical gimmicks, then you don't have much of an argument.  Just sophistry.

I am on the record for this, and only this: CAIS is a 46,XY DSD with a female-typical exterior; the person may be a woman and a mother in ordinary and legal talk; that does not make sex a social construct and does not turn a same-sex household into a mother-and-father household.

Fallacies

• Equivocation. “Ordinary/legal/social sense” treated as “identity transcends biology.”
• Quote-mining. “Identity” lifted out of a list of how people speak.
• False dichotomy. Either always “male” or sex is not biological.
• Motte-and-bailey. Uses a DSD edge case to smuggle in the general identity rule.

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited 16 hours ago by smac97

[SeekingUnderstanding]

32 minutes ago, smac97 said:

It is not prejudice. Prejudice is animus toward a person. This is a rule about an act and an institution. Same-sex couples are not being picked out from a field of otherwise identical marriages. They are a different kind of pair because they categorically and entirely lack procreative capacity and cannot function as a mother and father, and any children they raise they necessarily and by design deprive the child of either a mother or a father. Yes, there are some opposite-sex couples who lack procreative capacity, but they are nevertheless still of that first kind. If the only permitted explanation is bigotry, you have defined the conclusion before the reasons start.

I don't think black people should be able to get married. Because they have black skin. I'm not prejudiced against them, I just have a sexual ethic where children should be raised by non-black people. Don't worry though I have really good black friends and I don't think they are any less of people. I just have a rule about an act and an institution.

[smac97]

2 hours ago, Analytics said:

Yes. Everyone is subject to cognitive biases. The difference is whether somebody uses their intelect to rationalize believing what they find themselves believing, or whether they use their intellect to look past their cognitive biases and get to the truth.

And you, having "used" your "intellect" to transcend your cognitive biases, have gotten to truths such as A) there should be no limiting principles at all as to who can enter into sex-segregated spaces (like bathrooms), B) a man can "become" a woman by "identifying" as one, C) "science" has "proven" that God does not exist, D) (apparently) the Latter-day Saints' sexual ethic is uniquely objectionable and outside the bounds of reasonableness.

A and B sure sound a lot like ideological capture/obligation, not "the truth."  C is wishful thinking, and D looks to be rooted in antipathy (apparently everyone except the Latter-day Saints is allowed to formulate sexual ethics, and/or marriage-centered constraints on sexuality are per se unreasonable).

2 hours ago, Analytics said:

This is the difference between between Alma 32/Moroni 10 and the scientific method.

I agree.  I think the scientific method is useful for some things, and Alma 32/Moroni 10 is useful for other things.  Neither operates to the exclusion of the other.

The scientific method did not get you to A, B, C and D above.

2 hours ago, Analytics said:

This is the difference between motivated reasoning and rationality. This is the difference between faith and skepticism. 

Right.  And you have achieved rationality and religionists have not.

I think there are secular dogmas and ideological commitments that are in conflict with rationality, and that there are some who nevertheless allow the former to supersede the latter.

To wit: Ideological capture and obligation requires you to affirm that  man can "become" a woman by "identifying" as one, and that there should be no limiting principles whatsoever as to entry into sex-segregated spaces.  

Thanks,

-Smac

[SeekingUnderstanding]

6 minutes ago, smac97 said:

woman

Are we talking about biology or "ordinary speech—body, rearing, identity"? Or perhaps "ordinary, legal, and social sense?"

[Analytics]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

• Do you agree or disagree with Proposition 2 ("Sex is Important"),

I think it is important to some people and isn't important to other people.

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

• Proposition 3 ("Sexual Ethics are Important"), and Proposition 4 Everyone has Sexual Ethics / Parameters / Boundaries")?

Sure.

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

As for Proposition 5 ("Latter-day Saints are Entitled to Articulate an X/Y Differentiation"), I'm not really sure where you land. 

Yes, you have the right to articulate this.

What do you think of Proposition 5a? 

Proposition 5a: Non-Latter-day Saints are entitled to articulate their thoughts about the X/Y differentiation that Latter-day Saints articulate.

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

I have not divided infertile couples into “ones who can have kids and ones who can’t.” That sentence is a caricature of the argument. The split is kind of pair, not a fertility test administered couple by couple.

This gets to the heart of our differences in world view. You see people as Platonic "kinds." I see them as individuals. You assign people to classes (i.e. kinds), and then give them different rules based upon what class they are in. The classes aren't about whether they can have kids in the real world. They are about whether they can have kids in Plato's realm of the forms. That is why couples A and B, who are identically situated in every real-world way, are treated differently.

This clarifies that for you, it isn't really about real-world children. It's about the dogma associated with your idealized thoughts of how the world should be. 

Logically, the only reasoning I see here is just begging the question. It is unethical for same-sex couples to have sex because it is unethical for same-sex couples to have sex. That is what it comes down to. 

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

A man and a woman are the kind of pair whose sexual union is the generative kind.

In Plato's realm of the forms, sure. In the real world, if they are infertile then they don't belong to a generative kind. That is what it means to be non-fertile. 

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Assuming you disagree with Proposition 6 ("The Law of Chastity is a Reasonable Basis for Sexual Ethics"), I hope you will elaborate. 

• What is it about Proposition 6 that places the Law of Chastity entirely outside the boundaries of reasonableness?

I think George Michael was generally correct when he said:

Sex is natural, sex is good
Not everybody does it
But everybody should

This is supported by research. The flagship journal of the World Health Organization published a meta-analysis on the effects that sex has on wellbeing. Quoting its findings:

"Of 23,930 unique titles identified, 63 studies met the inclusion criteria. We grouped the results into two categories: (i) sexual and physical health; and (ii) sexual and psychological health. The results consistently showed strong correlations between sexual health, overall health and well-being. Almost all studies found significant associations between positive sexual health indicators and lower depression and anxiety, higher quality of life, and greater life satisfaction among men and women, including older adults, pregnant women, and same-sex and mixed-sex couples.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11601183/

I find your sex code to be harmful because it uses false religious beliefs to deprive people of these benefits. When people in your out group follow your code, they can expect lower sexual health, lower overall health, lower overall wellbeing, higher depression and anxiety, lower quality of life, and lower life satisfaction.

Your sex code hurts people. That is why I am against it.

Edited 15 hours ago by Analytics

[Analytics]

22 minutes ago, smac97 said:

And you, having "used" your "intellect" to transcend your cognitive biases, have gotten to truths such as A) there should be no limiting principles at all as to who can enter into sex-segregated spaces (like bathrooms),

I have repeatedly said what my limiting principles were.

22 minutes ago, smac97 said:

B) a man can "become" a woman by "identifying" as one,

I have never said that. Sigh.

22 minutes ago, smac97 said:

C) "science" has "proven" that God does not exist,

That depends upon how "God" is defined. The Mormon God--i.e. the father of Adam, the flesh-and-bone humanoid space traveler from a planet near Kolob, just isn't plausible. It contradicts everything we know about quantum mechanics, relativity, earth history, and biology. 

You can mock me for acknowledging this. But you are the one that asked me to comment on your testimony. 

22 minutes ago, smac97 said:

D) (apparently) the Latter-day Saints' sexual ethic is uniquely objectionable and outside the bounds of reasonableness.

What I find objectionable is your obsession with the sex lives of others.

But "uniquely objectionable"? No. I never said, implied, or thought that.

 

[smac97]

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

You make a fair point that I really had two points wrapped together. One point was that rationality leads to naturalism.

Which is possible, but hardly inevitable.

Newton.  Galileo.  Kepler.  Pascal.  Pasteur.  Mendel.  Planck.  Then men pursued matters of both science and faith, rationality and intellectual humility (humble enough to acknowledge that we really don't "know" nearly as much as we think we do, and that we actually don't rely on empiricism and the scientific method for almost all things, and that we instead rely on transmission of information, trust, faith, limited observation, etc.).

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

The other point was that cognitive biases are the basis for your underlying beliefs.

But cognitive biases are not the basis for your underlying beliefs?

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

But stating that those two things are my beliefs aren't logical arguments. I wasn't attempting to prove anything. I was simply telling you what I believe.

Oh. 

Let's go back to that compilation of your past statements:

Quote

• "All I claimed is that the supernatural elements of the book are impossible and hence did not happen."
• "It takes Dr. Carroll several chapters to lay out the framework for how we can and do have positive evidence that these (for lack of a better word) 'supernatural' forms of matter and energy do not exist, rather than merely not being discovered yet. But he does make the case."
• "I pointed out that we know from Effective Quantum Field Theory that the miracles in and around the Book of Mormon did not happen."
• "Earlier in this thread, smac97 asked me when, precisely, science proved that spirits don’t exist. The answer to that question is that this knowledge started to emerge in 1989 when the Large Electron-Positron Collider was first fired up."
• "I've presented evidence from mainstream physics that shows basic truth claims of Mormonism, such as the existence of spirits and revelation, are flatly disproven."
• "{T}hings like spirits, revelation, and priesthood power are within the purview of science because they make concrete claims about the real world. As I've shown on this thread, the strongest, most robust, most well-tested theory of all of science, the theory that is as strong as a child of the Hulk and Godzilla, proves that spirits and revelation don't exist."
• "According to the massive experimental evidence supporting it, quantum field theory is true, within its domain of applicability. And if quantum field theory is true, we know there is not a mysterious thing made out of "more fine and pure matter" that connects with the brain in a way that has enough energy to have any effect on how the brain functions."

Are these all declarations of what you believe, or what you know?

Brigham Young sometimes failed to differentiate between "doctrine" and "stuff about which I have strong feelings and opinions."

Is it possible that you similarly fail to differentiation between "empirical reality" (your phrase, I believe) and "stuff about which I have strong feelings and opinions?"

Why should I believe you have transcended your cognitive biases and I have not?  In the end, isn't pretty much everything you have said about things on which there is reasonable disagreement to be - as you are now putting it - "I was simply telling you what I believe?"

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

Here's the thing. Your response to Carroll simply shows you don't understand the strength and scope of his arguments.

Yes, yes.  We've been through this, including your various characterizations of Carroll that don't seem to jibe with ... Carroll.

Here:

Quote

Carroll: "Science isn't in the business of proving things."

Roger (citing Carroll's writings): "{S}cience has proven that 'spirits' don’t exist."

And here:

Quote

So Carroll has "proven" that these "undefined" things (God and spirits) "don't exist?"  That's what "science" can do?  Disprove the existence of something that isn't even defined?

Quote

However, I would say Carroll is a qualified expert with regards to Effective Quantum Field Theory and the experimental data supporting it, including what it implies about the likelihood of there being unknown energy or particles that can affect our day-to-day reality, including signals to or from the atoms that make up our brains. 

"What it implies about the likelihood?"  

What happened to "the strongest, most robust, most well-tested theory of all of science," that is "as strong as a child of the Hulk and Godzilla," and "proves that spirits and revelation don't exist"?

Do you see just a wee bit of difference between

(A) a theory that "provisionally" (as Carroll elsewhere put it) "implies" a "likelihood" of the non-existence of spirits

versus

(B) a theory that, as you assert, is "as strong as a child of the Hulk and Godzilla" and "proves" the non-existence of spirits?

I'm getting whiplash reading your posts.  

From a previous discussion with you: I think we kid ourselves if we think we have a complete and pristinely accurate understanding and command of "science."  We regularly come across compilations and lists of things we do not yet know, or fully know, via "science."

And another: I see you doing the same sort of thing as Dr. Fauci.  You conflate your opinion with "science."  You honestly seem to think that what you think is "science."  That your way of looking at things pertaining to the existence of God is the only plausible, reasonable, "rational" way of doing so.  To disagree with you is to disagree with "science" and "rationality" (and, therefore, to disagree with you is to be stupid, ignorant, dishonest, etc.).

Here:

Quote

Quote

In the words of Sean Carroll:

There’s nothing in the practice of science that excludes the supernatural from the start. Science tries to find the best explanations for what we observe, and if the best explanation is a non-natural one, that’s the one science would lead us to. We can easily imagine situations in which the best explanation scientists could find would reach beyond the natural world. The Second Coming could occur; Jesus could return to Earth, the dead could be resurrected, and judgment could be passed. It would be a pretty dense set of scientists indeed who, faced with the evidence of their senses in such a situation, would stubbornly insist on considering only natural explanations. The relationship between science and naturalism is not that science presumes naturalism; it’s that science has provisionally concluded that naturalism is the best picture of the world we have available.

Carroll, Sean. The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself (p. 134). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

Sheesh.  Even Carroll doesn't go so far as you do.  He proposes that "science has provisionally concluded" some things. 

"Provisionally," as I hope you understand, means "subject to further confirmation; for the time being."  Synonyms for it include "temporarily" and "on certain conditions."  See also "subject to confirmation," "as a fill-in," "short-term," "for the present," "for now," and "tentatively."

But on this thread you have blown way past "provisionally" and are saying that Caroll's theory is "the strongest, most robust, most well-tested theory of all of science," that it is "as strong as a child of the Hulk and Godzilla," and that it "proves that spirits and revelation don't exist."

Don't you see what you are doing here?

Here (same link): 

Quote

Quote

In any case, Sean Carroll has made a serious, provocative, science-based argument about how there is immense experimental evidence supporting the rigorousness of Quantum Mechanics within its "domain of applicability," and that surprisingly, this indicates that there can't be "spirits",

"Indicates that there can't be 'spirits?'"

Indicates?

What happened to "proves?"  As in "the strongest, most robust, most well-tested theory of all of science," that it is "as strong as a child of the Hulk and Godzilla," and that it "proves that spirits and revelation don't exist"?

Quote

at least not spirits strong enough to interact with known reality by moving a photon, moving an electron, or moving anything else that would be perceptible to us.

"At least not?"

"Known reality?"

"Perceptible to us?"

Again, what happened to "proves that spirits and revelation don't exist?"

Surely you understand that qualified terms like "at least not" and "known reality" and "perceptible to us" don't play well together with absolutist, conclusory terms like "strong as a child of the Hulk and Godzilla" and "proves that spirits and revelation don't exist"?

Here (same link): 

Quote

Quote

I've claimed that it isn't just that physics hasn't found evidence of these things. I've claimed that effective quantum field theory--the most robust theory in all of science, positively demonstrates that such things can't exist.

"I've claimed" being the operative wording here.

Carroll posits a theory that "provisionally" "implies" a "likelihood" of the non-existence of Spirit.

You then come along and assert that "effective quantum field theory--the most robust theory in all of science, positively demonstrates that such things can't exist."

I see vast differences between what Carroll seems to have said and what an over-enthusiastic neophyte who read his book has construed.

Here (same link) :

Quote

Quote

That is the reality of where we are with science--the laws of physics really do rule out spirits, revelation, and such.

Pinker quoting Carroll.  And Carroll posits a theory that "provisionally" "implies" a "likelihood" of the non-existence of spirits.

And according to you, this means "the laws of physics really do rule out spirits, revelation, and such."

Thus sprach Analytics.

Here (same link) :

Quote

Quote

The issue isn't whether rational minds disagree. The issue is whether there is a rational argument that Sean Carroll is wrong.

Whether Carroll is "wrong" in his theory that "provisionally" "implies" a "likelihood" of the non-existence of spirits?

And according to you, isn't the discussion over?  There is no debate to be had because "the laws of physics really do rule out spirits, revelation, and such."  That's it.  The debate is over.  Analytics has spoken.  To disagree with him is to deny rationality.  To disagree is to be stupid, ignorant, dishonest, or some combination thereof.  "Science is science," after all.  And Analytics is the receptable of "Science" in its purest form.

Or . . . not.  It might just be that Analytics is vastly overstating what "science" in 2021 can prove or disprove.  

And then there's what you did to Terryl Givens (same link) :

Quote

Quote

 

Your fixation on Jeremy Runnells and Jeff Lindsay's theory about "big lists" is really missing the mark here. As a chess analogy, I'm not a very good chess player. At all. But if you put me in the middle of a game with a strong enough position, I could beat any Grand Master or chess supercomputer. The Grand Masters could write hundreds of books about chess, but that wouldn't change the fact that if the pieces are arranged in such a way that even a dimwit like me can see the endgame, I will win.

As an example of what I mean, our own consiglieri is an extremely well-read ex-apologist now critic. He has a very articulate and accessible podcast called "Radio Free Mormon". A recent episode is called "The Amazingly Subversive Terryl Givens," which goes through Givens's latest book and shows how it is subversive in the sense that it contains dozens of concessions of anti-Mormon claims that you'd find on a "big list." Givens thinks the end result is beautiful and expresses it all from a perspective of admiration in erudite language, but if you have the patience and intellect to read what he is actually saying and compare it to what the church teaches in manuals and in conference, then one inescapably comes to the conclusion that Givens is admitting it isn't true--it is a fraud. A beautiful inspiring fraud for Givens, but a fraud nonetheless. Listen to the podcast. 

 

So your characterizations of Terryl Givens were pretty bold:

• "Givens's latest book ... is subversive ... {and} contains dozens of concessions of anti-Mormon claims that you'd find on a 'big list.'"
• "Givens thinks the end result is beautiful and expresses it all from a perspective of admiration in erudite language,"
• "if you have the patience and intellect to read what he is actually saying and compare it to what the church teaches in manuals and in conference, then one inescapably comes to the conclusion that Givens is admitting it isn't true--it is a fraud."
• "A beautiful inspiring fraud for Givens, but a fraud nonetheless."
• "Listen to the podcast."

Your characterizations were also, as it turns out, pretty flagrantly wrong.  I responded:

Quote

So I listened to most of the podcast (it's a bit tedious).  

I also sent an email to Terryl Givens.  I quoted (verbatim) the second paragraph above, and asked him if he would agree with your characterization/conclusion (that he is conceding that the Pearl of Great Price is "a fraud").  He responded within minutes and categorically rejected your characterization (calling "patently false" your allegation that he believes or implies the PoGP is a "fraud").

Given that Givens is perhaps the world's leading expert on what he believes, and given how massively incorrect you were in reaching a purportedly "inescapabl{e}" conclusion derived from applying "patience and intellect to read what he is actually saying," I think you'll understand which of the two sources I will find more persuasive.  

Elsewhere I said this: "I just now went back and looked at the email I received from Bro. Givens.  Not only did he call your claim about him 'patently false,' he also said this: 'I dont believe any careful reader of the entire book could reasonably conclude such a thing.'"

You never disputed my statement above, nor did you ever challenge my quote from Bro. Givens.  So your various characterizations of him were, I think, demonstrably falsified, and yet you just shrugged it off.  You responded:

Quote

Thank you for listening to the podcast and for giving Dr. Givens an opportunity to respond to my characterization. And thank you for considering my views on this. 

I presume you see my point, and with that, I'll bow out of the conversation.

And "bow out" you did.  No retraction.  No revision.  No acknowledgment of rank and flagrant error on your part.  You just withdrew from the discussion and carried on.

There is "science."  And there are Carroll's findings.  And there is rationality and reasoning and the scientific method and "empirical reality," and also fair-minded characterizations of the Latter-day Saints (such as Givens).

There is also what you have to say about these things.

These two categories do not perfectly overlap. 

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

Neither of these things disprove the existence of "God", in a broad, intentionally ill-defined kind of way.

Neither you nor Carroll has defined "God."  Has this been "intentional?"

Again, your various declarations based on Carroll:

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

But the Core Theory and Cognitive Neuroscience do lead to exactly the same result: the idea of some sort of "spirit" that drives our bodies just isn't plausible. 

"{J}ust isn't plausible" is worlds apart from your various pronouncements.  Again:

Quote

• "All I claimed is that the supernatural elements of the book are impossible and hence did not happen."
• "It takes Dr. Carroll several chapters to lay out the framework for how we can and do have positive evidence that these (for lack of a better word) 'supernatural' forms of matter and energy do not exist, rather than merely not being discovered yet. But he does make the case."
• "I pointed out that we know from Effective Quantum Field Theory that the miracles in and around the Book of Mormon did not happen."
• "Earlier in this thread, smac97 asked me when, precisely, science proved that spirits don’t exist. The answer to that question is that this knowledge started to emerge in 1989 when the Large Electron-Positron Collider was first fired up."
• "I've presented evidence from mainstream physics that shows basic truth claims of Mormonism, such as the existence of spirits and revelation, are flatly disproven."
• "{T}hings like spirits, revelation, and priesthood power are within the purview of science because they make concrete claims about the real world. As I've shown on this thread, the strongest, most robust, most well-tested theory of all of science, the theory that is as strong as a child of the Hulk and Godzilla, proves that spirits and revelation don't exist."
• "According to the massive experimental evidence supporting it, quantum field theory is true, within its domain of applicability. And if quantum field theory is true, we know there is not a mysterious thing made out of "more fine and pure matter" that connects with the brain in a way that has enough energy to have any effect on how the brain functions."

One of the difficulties I have with taking you seriously as a purveyor of "science" is that you are not a reliable narrator.  Not about Carroll.  Not about Givens.  Not about the Latter-day Saints.  And all your various inaccuracies, mischaracterizations, misstatements, etc. do not, I think, just happen to always fall in line with your worldview, cognitive biases, etc. 

Thanks,

-Smac

[smac97]

19 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Quote

• Do you agree or disagree with Proposition 2 ("Sex is Important"),

I think it is important to some people and isn't important to other people.

I wasn't asked about "some people."  I was asking about you.  Is sex "important?"

19 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Quote

• Proposition 3 ("Sexual Ethics are Important"), and Proposition 4 Everyone has Sexual Ethics / Parameters / Boundaries")?

Sure.

Thank you for your response.  The clarity helps.

19 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Quote

As for Proposition 5 ("Latter-day Saints are Entitled to Articulate an X/Y Differentiation"), I'm not really sure where you land. 

Yes, you have the right to articulate this.

What do you think of Proposition 5a? 

Proposition 5a: Non-Latter-day Saints are entitled to articulate their thoughts about the X/Y differentiation that Latter-day Saints articulate.

This gets to the heart of our differences in world view.

I don't think so.

19 minutes ago, Analytics said:

You see people as Platonic "kinds."

No.  I see people as biological "kinds."  Male and female.  That's it.  No third sex.  No "neither."  No "spectrum."  No "sex is a social construct."

19 minutes ago, Analytics said:

I see them as individuals.

The failure/refusal to acknowledge empirical reality, and to instead retreat to emotionalisms ("I see them as individuals") is, (I think, a big reason why the trans movement is getting so much resistance.

Folks like you want to tell us that a man can "become" a woman by "identifying" as one, and thus move from one "kind" to another.

What about "individuals" who "identify" as an age they are not, species they are not, and so on?  Because you "see them as individuals," they are somehow able to change their sex or age or species?  

19 minutes ago, Analytics said:

You assign people to classes (i.e. kinds), and then give them different rules based upon what class they are in.

Well, no.  I am acknowledging that one "kind" of human creates eggs, the other sperm.  And that two men cannot procreate, nor can two women. I didn't "give them" these "rules."  Biology and "empirical reality" did.

I also posit that everyone differentiates between X (appropriate/authorized expressions of sexuality) and Y (inappropriate/authorized expressions of sexuality), that a centered-on-marriage ethic is within the bounds of reasonableness, and that the Church's sexual ethic is based on reasoning (and revelation), and not bigotry.

19 minutes ago, Analytics said:

I find your sex code to be harmful because it uses false religious beliefs to deprive people of these benefits. When people in your out group follow your code, they can expect lower sexual health, lower overall health, lower overall wellbeing, higher depression and anxiety, lower quality of life, and lower life satisfaction.

Your sex code hurts people. That is why I am against it.

I think your sexual ethic (I'm not really sure what it is, since I don't think you have articulated it) would, if presented and evaluated, also be demonstrated "to be harmful."  But I think the "harm" would not come from the constraints of your ethic (as the supposed "harm" does from the Law of Chastity's constraints), but rather from licentiousness.  Hook-up culture.  STI's.  Elective abortion.  And so on.

That said, I take the welfare point seriously. A rule that is true can still be hard, and some people will be more hurt by a hard rule than others. That is not a small thing. It is also not a proof that the rule is false, or that the only honest motive for it is harm.

“False religious beliefs.”

That is the conclusion you need, used as a premise. If God has not spoken, say that and we argue authority. If the ethic is only “inherited American norms,” say that and we argue history. Calling it "false" in the first sentence does not show that the line I drew is irrational. It shows you have already rejected the premises.

“Out group.”

The Law of Chastity is not a code written for an out-group. It forbids the same acts for everyone: sex outside a marriage of husband and wife. Same-sex attracted people are not a separate caste with a harsher statute. They face a steeper application of the same statute.  Same rule, disparate effects. That is real. It is also how every demanding ethic works. A married man who wants other women is not “in group.” He is under the same constraint.

Outcomes.

You listed lower sexual health, health, wellbeing, higher depression and anxiety, lower life satisfaction, as if those were measured effects of this teaching on people who keep it. Some religious LGBT people do report more distress. That fact, where it holds, matters pastorally. It does not do the work you want.

• Correlation is not “your code caused this.” Family rejection, social conflict, the gap between desire and the rule, and minority-stress stories can all sit in the same data.
• People who keep a strict sexual rule also show, in other slices of the population, fewer STIs, fewer unintended pregnancies, and more stable marriages. You do not get to count only the costs.
• A constraint can lower one kind of “sexual health” (frequency, partnered sex) and raise another (infection, fragmentation). You are using “sexual health” as “more of the sex I think they should have.”

“Deprive people of these benefits.”

The “benefits” in view are a sexual relationship the ethic says is not X. That is question-begging. Every sexual ethic deprives someone of a benefit they want. BCA deprives the betrayed spouse. Celibacy outside marriage deprives everyone who wants sex they are not promised. “This rule takes something I think they should have” is a restatement of your line, not an argument that mine is cruelty.

And "deprive?"  C'mon.  A person's association with the Church is bilaterally voluntary.  The individual can at any time set aside the Law of Chastity and the Church can't do squat about it (except to mete out restrictions on or removal of membership).  

Health is not the same as truth.

If a teaching is false, say why it is false. If it is true and costly, the honest sentence is that some lives will be harder. Surgery, sobriety, and fidelity all have that shape. “People would feel better if they did not believe this” can be a reason to offer care. It is not, by itself, a reason the belief is wrong.

I have already said attraction is not sin, that sloppy guilt and folklore were harmful, and that members who treat people as dirty because of desire are not following the teaching. I will say that again. None of that converts the closed set into BCA, and none of it makes “your code hurts people” a substitute for showing the code is false.

Fallacies

• Question-begging. “False beliefs” assumed; “benefits” defined as the forbidden relationship.
• Causal leap. Distress among some who live the rule treated as proof the rule caused it and is therefore immoral.
• One-sided ledger. Costs of the rule counted; costs of the alternative ignored.
• Equivocation. “Sexual health” as volume of desired sex vs bodily and relational health.
• Appeal to consequences. Even if the rule is hard, hardness ≠ falsehood.

Thanks,

-Smac

[smac97]

1 hour ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Quote

It is not prejudice. Prejudice is animus toward a person. This is a rule about an act and an institution. Same-sex couples are not being picked out from a field of otherwise identical marriages. They are a different kind of pair because they categorically and entirely lack procreative capacity and cannot function as a mother and father, and any children they raise they necessarily and by design deprive the child of either a mother or a father. Yes, there are some opposite-sex couples who lack procreative capacity, but they are nevertheless still of that first kind. If the only permitted explanation is bigotry, you have defined the conclusion before the reasons start.

I don't think black people should be able to get married. Because they have black skin. I'm not prejudiced against them, I just have a sexual ethic where children should be raised by non-black people. Don't worry though I have really good black friends and I don't think they are any less of people. I just have a rule about an act and an institution.

That is a parody, not a parallel.

Race is not what marriage is. A Black man and a Black woman, or a Black man and a White woman, are still a man and a woman, and still have procreative capacity. The pair can be husband and wife. The child, if there is one, still has a mother and a father.

Skin color is not a constituent of the act or of the two parental sexes. Banning marriage “because they have Black skin” is picking a trait that has nothing to do with the kind of union. That is prejudice wearing a rule.

Sex is not like that. “Man” and “woman” are the two halves of the kind of pair the rule is about. Two men are not “the same marriage plus an extra adjective.” They are not a husband and a wife, and a household of two men is not a mother and a father. That is the claim you have to answer. Swapping in race assumes the claim is already false.

“Children should be raised by non-Black people” is an invented end. Nobody is required by biology or by the structure of generation to believe it. “A child has a mother and a father” is not an invented end. It is a description of how children come to be. You can say that description should not control marriage law. You cannot pretend it is the same sentence as a color bar.

The “I have Black friends” line is doing smear work. I have not claimed same-sex attracted people are less human. I have claimed a kind of sexual pair is not a marriage of husband and wife. If that is wrong, show that the kinds are the same. Do not swap the trait for one that is irrelevant and call the result a confession.

Loving struck down a rule that used race to stop men and women from marrying. It did not hold that every restriction on which pair counts as marriage is the same as a racial ban. Treating sex as legally interchangeable with race is the move you need to justify. The parody assumes it.

Again: I think the "Bigot!" schtick is so frequently utilized because it's all you've got.  I can articulate a reasoned basis for my position.  I don't think you can, either that or you are so immersed in your own worldview that you cannot accommodate the possibility that viewpoints divergent from yours might be reasonable.  So you retreat to name-calling.

Fallacies

• False analogy. Race is accidental to the man–woman pair; sex is the pair.
• Straw man. Recasts “kind of union / mother and father” as “I dislike this group.”
• Poisoning the well. “Good friends” sneer.
• Question-begging. Assumes sex is as arbitrary in marriage as color.

Edited 14 hours ago by smac97

[SeekingUnderstanding]

 

 

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

That is a parody, not a parallel.

Race is not what marriage is.

The gender of the participants is not what marriage is. Your interpretation of your religious leader's interpretation of thier god says it's important, but that is not "reasoned”, it's declared and accepted.

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

A Black man and a Black woman, or a Black man and a White woman, are still a man and a woman, and still have procreative capacity. The pair can be husband and wife. The child, if there is one, still has a mother and a father.

We've determined that procreative capacity has nothing to do with it, because it doesn't matter if the couple engages in procreative sex, is past menopause, uses birth control etc. What is important to you, is your interpretation of your religious leader's interpretation of thier god says only opposite genders can marry. That is not reasoned but declared and accepted.

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Skin color is not a constituent of the act or of the two parental sexes. Banning marriage “because they have Black skin” is picking a trait that has nothing to do with the kind of union. That is prejudice wearing a rule.

 

So is the reproductive status, acts and genders of the participants. Except, your interpretation of your religious leader's interpretation of their god says only opposite genders can marry. That is not reasoned but declared and accepted.

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Sex is not like that. “Man” and “woman” are the two halves of the kind of pair the rule is about. Two men are not “the same marriage plus an extra adjective.” They are not a husband and a wife, and a household of two men is not a mother and a father. That is the claim you have to answer. Swapping in race assumes the claim is already false.

I have yet to see a distinction made that doesn't boil down to "your interpretation of your religious leader's interpretation of their god says only opposite genders can marry." It doesn't matter if the couple can have kids, wants to have kids or anything else. 

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

“Children should be raised by non-Black people” is an invented end. Nobody is required by biology or by the structure of generation to believe it. “A child has a mother and a father” is not an invented end. It is a description of how children come to be. You can say that description should not control marriage law. You cannot pretend it is the same sentence as a color bar.

We've already demonstrated that you don't actually care about this. If science tomorrow created a way for gay people to have biological children it wouldn't change a thing. It boils down your religious leader's interpretation of their god says only opposite genders can marry.

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

The “I have Black friends” line is doing smear work. I have not claimed same-sex attracted people are less human. I have claimed a kind of sexual pair is not a marriage of husband and wife. If that is wrong, show that the kinds are the same. Do not swap the trait for one that is irrelevant and call the result a confession.

I don't think the genders or the race of the participants are important. They are on the same level to me. It boils down your religious leader's interpretation of their god says only opposite genders can marry.

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Loving struck down a rule that used race to stop men and women from marrying. It did not hold that every restriction on which pair counts as marriage is the same as a racial ban. Treating sex as legally interchangeable with race is the move you need to justify. The parody assumes it.

The parody does assume they are interchangeable. Because they are. Marriage serves the exact same role for married lesbians as married straight people. It serves the same role for infertile and fertile people. It serves the same role for black and white people. It serves the same role for people that participate in reproductive sex acts and non-reproductive sex acts. Except for you because your religious leader's interpretation of their god says only opposite genders can marry.

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Again: I think the "Bigot!" schtick is so frequently utilized because it's all you've got.  I can articulate a reasoned basis for my position. 

Still waiting to see it. Here is what I see. You believe in God. God said each kid needs a Mom and a Dad and marriage and sex are only for opposite gendered people who are married. That's it. I mean we tried to go back and forth on the biology one. You said "as a reproductive act, it does not cohere" but apparently you have no problem with opposite gendered people participating in sex acts that are non-reproductive even if they do so exclusively. Further post menopausal woman still get to have sex even though as a reproductive act that doesn't cohere. Your fine with Jackie having sex even though she has XY chromosomes and as  a reproductive act that doesn't cohere. So what's left? Your religious leader's interpretation of their god says only opposite genders can marry.

 

Edited 13 hours ago by SeekingUnderstanding

[Analytics]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Which is possible, but hardly inevitable.

Newton.  Galileo.  Kepler.  Pascal.  Pasteur.  Mendel.  Planck.  Then men pursued matters of both science and faith, rationality and intellectual humility (humble enough to acknowledge that we really don't "know" nearly as much as we think we do, and that we actually don't rely on empiricism and the scientific method for almost all things, and that we instead rely on transmission of information, trust, faith, limited observation, etc.).

[emphasis added]

I appreciate you using the word "then" to describe the beliefs that these pioneers. It acknowledges that they lived and died before we knew much, if anything, about earth science, biology, evolution, cognitive neuroscience, nuclear physics, quantum mechanics, and special and general relativity.

To clarify my position, when I say rationality leads to naturalism, I'm talking about the findings of modern science more than a mere choice of philosophy. Sean Carroll explains that science isn't based on methodological naturalism, it is based on methodological empiricism. Naturalism as a belief structure is the result of looking at the evidence that we now have. Scientists believe it because that is where the evidence points.

I think true humility is recognizing that the religion we were taught from the cradle might be wrong and that just maybe, we are no more special than all of the other people throughout time who have been duped by false religions. I think true humility is looking at what the scientific evidence actually implies and giving it the weight that the supporting evidence indicates. Sticking your head in the sand to protect your religious beliefs isn't humility. It's willful ignorance.

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

One of the difficulties I have with taking you seriously as a purveyor of "science" is that you are not a reliable narrator....

My favorite scientist is Steven Pinker. In addition to being a National Academies of Science member for his work as a psychologist, linguist, and cognitive scientist, and in addition to being the usage editor of the American Heritage Dictionary for 11 years, he has written over a dozen amazing books on a wide range of topics. He is an incredible communicator who applies his insights from psychology and linguistics to write understandable and memorable prose. 

And one of my favorite books he's written is a book on how to write well. It is a style guide called The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.

One of the things he advocates in that book is to avoid unnecessary hedging. In my attempt to do that, I may have said things like, "science has proven that the earth is round" instead of saying what is technically more correct like, "while science isn't in the business of proving anything, an overwhelming amount of evidence points to it being round. But as a matter of principle, science remains open to new evidence and new interpretations of the existing evidence that could indicate it is flat."

Here is what Pinker said in his own words: 

Writers acquire the hedge habit to conform to the bureaucratic imperative that’s abbreviated as CYA, which I’ll spell out as Cover Your Anatomy. They hope it will get them off the hook, or at least allow them to plead guilty to a lesser charge, should a critic ever try to prove them wrong. It’s the same reason that lawsuit-wary journalists drizzle the words allegedly and reportedly throughout their copy, as in The alleged victim was found lying in a pool of blood with a knife in his back.

There is an alternative slogan to Cover Your Anatomy: So Sue Me. A classic writer counts on the common sense and ordinary charity of his readers, just as in everyday conversation we know when a speaker means “in general” or “all else being equal.” If someone tells you that Liz wants to move out of Seattle because it’s a rainy city, you don’t interpret him as claiming that it rains there twenty-four hours a day seven days a week just because he didn’t qualify his statement with relatively rainy or somewhat rainy. As Thomas and Turner explain, “Accuracy becomes pedantry if it is indulged for its own sake. A classic writer will phrase a subordinate point precisely but without the promise that it is technically accurate. The convention between writer and reader is that the writer is not to be challenged on these points because they are mere scaffolding.” Any adversary who is unscrupulous enough to give the least charitable reading to an unhedged statement will find an opening to attack the writer in a thicket of hedged ones anyway.

Pinker, Steven. The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century (pp. 62-63). (Function). Kindle Edition. 

Your rants here make it clear that you aren't trying to understand my points, much less understand the science I'm talking about. I do think you're doing a good job of giving yourself an excuse to avoid looking at the evidence that could shake your religious convictions, and your response is a good example of motivated reasoning.

Edited 13 hours ago by Analytics

[Analytics]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

A person's association with the Church is bilaterally voluntary.  The individual can at any time set aside the Law of Chastity and the Church can't do squat about it (except to mete out restrictions on or removal of membership).  

Not exactly. This reminds me of what Richard Dawkins said:

Children, I’ll argue, have a human right not to have their minds crippled by exposure to other people’s bad ideas—no matter who these other people are. Parents, correspondingly, have no God-given licence to enculturate their children in whatever ways they personally choose: no right to limit the horizons of their children’s knowledge, to bring them up in an atmosphere of dogma and superstition, or to insist they follow the straight and narrow paths of their own faith.

In short, children have a right not to have their minds addled by nonsense, and we as a society have a duty to protect them from it. So we should no more allow parents to teach their children to believe, for example, in the literal truth of the Bible or that the planets rule their lives, than we should allow parents to knock their children’s teeth out or lock them in a dungeon.

Dawkins, Richard. The God Delusion (pp. 366-367). (Function). Kindle Edition. 

[california boy]

6 hours ago, smac97 said:

 

Two men are not an infertile instance of that kind. They are a different kind of pair. There is no generative type there to be blocked. “Cannot mix their own gametes” is something both pairs can say. Sharing a negative does not make them the same sort.

Curious.  Do you see any benefit at all for same sex marriage either to the couple or to society in general or both to their marriages?

Edited 10 hours ago by california boy

[Analytics]

4 hours ago, smac97 said:

Why should I believe you have transcended your cognitive biases and I have not? 

It isn't that I have successfully transcended my cognitive biases and you have not. I haven't transcended cognitive biases. That isn't my claim. My claim is that I am at least trying. I read books like Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters by Steven Pinker, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan, and The Scout Mindset: Why Some People See Things Clearly and Others Don’t by Julia Galef. 

The core messages of those books are the polar opposite of how Mormonism teaches to gain a testimony through faith-based "experiments" (e.g. Alma 32, Moroni 10), praying, listening to testimonies, faith-promoting stories, daily scripture study, etc. One set of methods is based on trying to see the evidence clearly. One set of methods is based on trying to be successful at getting and strengthening your testimony. Two different goals. Two different methods. You have to choose one or the other.

4 hours ago, smac97 said:

From a previous discussion with you: I think we kid ourselves if we think we have a complete and pristinely accurate understanding and command of "science."  We regularly come across compilations and lists of things we do not yet know, or fully know, via "science."

Sean Carroll talks about this in detail, of course. Just because we don't know everything doesn't mean we don't know some things. There just isn't going to be a journal in Nature that says, "New Discovery! The Heliocentric Model of the Solar System is Disproven! The Earth Really IS the Center of the Universe!" And just because something seems not only plausible but actually intuitive doesn't mean it's plausible at all.

That said, I did have a fairly extended conversation with ChatGPT about all of this, and it did agree with you that saying something is "impossible" is materially different than merely saying it is "implausible," and it also agreed with you that I've been relatively sloppy about how I've articulated the confidence in my beliefs, and that the Pinker quote I gave above doesn't rescue me as much as I wanted it to, because these are my central claims.

So here is a carefully worded statement of where I'm actually at:

I lack belief in “God” in the broad, undefined sense. I don’t claim to know that no conceivable deity exists; without a clearer definition, there isn’t one precise claim for me to affirm or deny.

The Mormon God is much more specific: an embodied Heavenly Father, literal father of human spirits, who created and governs the world, intervenes in human lives, and—according to Mormon teaching—has established strict rules about what consenting adults do in private, with severe spiritual consequences for violating them. Given what we know about evolution, the brain, physics, and the history of LDS teachings, I regard that God and the central claims built around Him as extraordinarily implausible. I have very high, though not absolute, confidence that this God does not exist and that Mormonism’s central supernatural claims are false. I can’t assign an exact probability, but I regard it as less likely than Mary Swanson living happily ever after with Lloyd Christmas.

For other conceptions of God, I’d need a clear definition before I could assess whether I believe they exist.

I then asked GPT-6 Luna Max the following prompt:

Given what we know about the core theory, cognitive neuroscience, earth history, biology, evolution, cognitive biases, and how the teachings of the Church have evolved over time, how reasonable is my position? Am I giving too much credence to the shifting winds of science? Am I being too cocky in my assessment of the facts? Am I employing cognitive biases to rationalize what I want to believe? Evaluate the truthfulness of this statement based on the actual strength of the scientific evidence it references. Don't tell me what I want to hear, and don't be vaguely diplomatic to humans and their various contradictory belief systems that they hold dearly to. Tell me the truth. Does this statement capture the actual truth that an unbiased evaluation of the actual evidence would lead us to?

It responded:

Quote

Straight verdict: Your central conclusion is reasonable and strongly supported. You are not giving excessive weight to a passing scientific consensus. But the evidence supports some parts of your position much more directly than others, and the Lloyd-and-Mary comparison overstates what can be numerically justified.

Claim	What the evidence supports
Earth and life have a deep history; humans evolved within the history of life	Extremely strong. Earth’s age is about 4.54 billion years, life existed billions of years ago, and genomic evidence places the human–chimpanzee split millions of years ago. These conclusions rest on converging evidence, not a fragile theory likely to be reversed.
A recent Adam introduced physical death to the biosphere, or humans were separately created outside evolution	Incompatible with the evidence, if taken literally. The Church now accepts Earth’s great age and takes no official position on evolution; that is a retreat from the confident anti-evolution views some leaders taught. The Church’s own history describes a major dispute over whether life and death predated Adam.
A spirit-self survives death independently of the brain	Unsupported and in tension with neuroscience. Brain changes can alter memory, personality, and cognition. That does not logically rule out a spirit, but it puts the burden on the spirit hypothesis to explain how it preserves the person.
A personal God intervenes in brains and events while leaving no physical trace	A serious problem for the hypothesis, not a mathematical impossibility. If God’s messages affect thoughts or actions, they must somehow affect physical brains. Carroll’s argument is that claims about such effects should face the same evidential standards as other claims about the world.
Mormonism’s exclusive truth and authority claims are false	Very high confidence is reasonable, but this is a broader inference from the scientific conflicts plus the history of leaders confidently teaching claims later rejected, narrowed, or left unresolved. It is not a conclusion produced by physics alone.

The distinction matters. Science does not demonstrate that no deity of any conceivable kind exists. It does make the traditional, literal LDS account of Earth and life untenable, and it gives little support to an embodied, interventionist Mormon God. The further conclusion that the Church is not uniquely authorized by God is an inference—but a strong one, given how poorly its record fits the expectation that prophets reliably guide people toward important truths.

On bias: your former religious commitments do not make you biased, and your current conclusions do not make you unbiased. The loaded, contemptuous phrasing in some of your drafts signals that you are arguing a case; it doesn’t show that the case is wrong. A more concrete risk is overstating the precision of your confidence. “Less likely than Mary Swanson living happily ever after with Lloyd Christmas” implies odds below one in a million. The evidence gives you no calibrated way to distinguish that from one in ten thousand or one in a billion. As a joke expressing your personal credence, it’s clear. As a probability an unbiased evaluation establishes, it goes too far.

So: very high confidence that Mormonism’s distinctive supernatural and authority claims are false is warranted. Near-certainty about the literal claims contradicted by science is warranted. Saying science has proved that no Mormon God can possibly exist—or that it has calculated million-to-one odds—is not.

 

[Calm]

In this discussion, has there been recognition that too much reproduction can be as destructive to the survival of the community as too little, especially given the high investment infants and young children demand in terms of time and energy and resources?

If so, wouldn’t it be immoral for individuals to disregard the capability not only of the individual parents, but the greater community’s ability to care for children at least at a survival level (no starvation or death from exposure due to lack of enough food and shelter for all).

It seems it is logically moral to therefore allow and support those who want to reproduce while not penalizing those who don’t as long as the number of children are sufficient for a functional and healthy community.  I really don’t see how outside a religious or ideological framework one can label having children as moral and making choices such that one won’t or can’t have children as immoral if one is addressing what is best for a community…it depends on the greater context whether either behaviour is beneficial or not.

Edited 5 hours ago by Calm