Creeping Liberalism

GregConstantine · Jan 21, 2016

gzt said:
I don't know where or how you're getting those ideas from my posts. We must be careful not to bear false witness.

That's right, no one here is saying such things.

GregConstantine · Jan 21, 2016

GregConstantine said:
Well, if the posts are being read, then the "obsession" wouldn't be there, right?

Gurney's and Orthodoxjay's responses are proof positive that our posts are not being read carefully...

Orthodoxjay1 · Jan 21, 2016

Wait a second, I could have worded my response better, a lot better in fact. I meant that some of the folks in TAW wants the Church to conform to the world, and secular society concerning issues like allowing divorce, and supporting the legalization of Gay Marriage.

Now as far as my comments about divorce as "freedom of association", and sodomy as a "right", or abortion as "women's health" I meant that how the world outside the Church see these vital issues. That was my fault I could of worded my post better.

So sorry gzt that was miscommunication on my part, not baring false witness, funny though how the usual suspects start ganging up on me, I must of hit a nerve with some folks. Now do some folks support gay marriage from a Libertarian/Progressive viewpoint or not on TAW?

All4Christ · Jan 21, 2016

Orthodoxjay1 said:
Wait a second, I could have worded my response better, a lot better in fact. I meant that some of the folks in TAW wants the Church to conform to the world, and secular society concerning issues like allowing divorce, and supporting the legalization of Gay Marriage.

I still disagree with this conclusion. Some have said that it is not necessarily a sin for an Orthodox Christian to be ok with the government allowing gay marriage and for the government to not prohibit divorce. No one has suggested that the Church should conform to the world.

Now as far as my comments about divorce as "freedom of association", and sodomy as a "right", or abortion as "women's health" I meant that how the world outside the Church see these vital issues. That was my fault I could of worded my post better.

Thanks for clarifying.

So sorry gzt that was miscommunication on my part, not baring false witness, funny though how the usual suspects start ganging up on me, I must of hit a nerve with some folks.

I see enough of people saying the opposite things that what I am saying on other boards to see it here at TAW. We are family here.

Now do some folks support gay marriage from a Libertarian/Progressive viewpoint or not on TAW?

Have you considered that Libertarians could have alternative views to why the federal government shouldn't be dictating what is a valid marriage (man / woman vs same sex)? Such as it not being the federal government's job to govern sacraments such as marriage? Perhaps there are concerns that the federal government involvement with marriage will start to overstep their boundaries and try to force the Church to do things that we do not accept or uphold. Perhaps the state level would be more likely to add laws to prohibit things that are morally wrong.

There are many more reasons than the approval of gay marriages for people to have Libertarian viewpoints. And even the ones who do allow for the "civil rights" and legalization of homosexual marriage to not be a sin are not saying the Church should support that or conform to the World. They also do not support homosexual marriage as a valid moral choice.

~Anastasia~ · Jan 21, 2016

In an IDEAL world ... it would be nice to have the laws of the land line up with our values. However ...

We are not living in an ideal world. Who is to say that those "in power", even if they had perfect laws that pleased us in every way, might not in a year or two decide that perhaps veneration of icons is actually idolatry, and of course if the laws represented our values, idolatry would be illegal.

I hope I'm explaining that well enough.

I do think certain things should be against the law - those things I believe immoral from a Christian standpoint. But ... it can open a door for things being legislated we would not like.

Abortion, same sex marriage? I still think it should be against the law. Abortion because it is killing babies, and same sex marriage because it is essentially the state defining a sacramental union. (And much more in each case.)

There's also the matter that laws don't necessarily govern people's consciences. People will still break laws. Instead of making abortion illegal, such that abortions are still performed, but in ways that have their own problems attached, I would find it much more effective and satisfying to see people value human life at all ages and stages, and make protection of and caring for that life a priority. If people did that, then even if the laws allowed all sorts of injury to human life, the hearts of people would keep them from doing such things, and the hearts of others would keep them from feeling they needed to.

But we don't live in an ideal world. Not by a long shot. And each of the things I've mentioned has a host of connected issues that I'm not sure people even see until after we begin "going down that road". Sometimes I'm disheartened to see that, if there is a bad fork to take on ANY road, society itself seems to take it, making the consequence of each decision even worse than we realize.

gzt · Jan 21, 2016

I believe even the legalistic Aquinas thought that it was imprudent to criminalize fornication. In fact, he taught legal toleration of prostitution (he provides interesting arguments that deserve contemplation). Of course, we're not Catholics. See also CS Lewis' arguments about how Christians should not be opposed to the relaxation of divorce law in his time and place.

All4Christ · Jan 21, 2016

~Anastasia~ said:
In an IDEAL world ... it would be nice to have the laws of the land line up with our values. However ...

We are not living in an ideal world. Who is to say that those "in power", even if they had perfect laws that pleased us in every way, might not in a year or two decide that perhaps veneration of icons is actually idolatry, and of course if the laws represented our values, idolatry would be illegal.

I hope I'm explaining that well enough.

I do think certain things should be against the law - those things I believe immoral from a Christian standpoint. But ... it can open a door for things being legislated we would not like.

Abortion, same sex marriage? I still think it should be against the law. Abortion because it is killing babies, and same sex marriage because it is essentially the state defining a sacramental union. (And much more in each case.)

There's also the matter that laws don't necessarily govern people's consciences. People will still break laws. Instead of making abortion illegal, such that abortions are still performed, but in ways that have their own problems attached, I would find it much more effective and satisfying to see people value human life at all ages and stages, and make protection of and caring for that life a priority. If people did that, then even if the laws allowed all sorts of injury to human life, the hearts of people would keep them from doing such things, and the hearts of others would keep them from feeling they needed to.

But we don't live in an ideal world. Not by a long shot. And each of the things I've mentioned has a host of connected issues that I'm not sure people even see until after we begin "going down that road". Sometimes I'm disheartened to see that, if there is a bad fork to take on ANY road, society itself seems to take it, making the consequence of each decision even worse than we realize.

Overall I agree with you on this.

The government defining of the sacramental union of marriage is definitely a problem in my opinion. There are some countries where Orthodoxy has removed the marriage sacrament from the State, in that they don't have the priest stand as a legal witness to the marriage. Instead, they both register with the State and have a separate sacramental marriage. Perhaps we will need to follow that route of separation at one point.

Just some thoughts

~Anastasia~ · Jan 21, 2016

All4Christ said:
Overall I agree with you on this.

The government defining of the sacramental union of marriage is definitely a problem in my opinion. There are some countries where Orthodoxy has removed the marriage sacrament from the State, in that they don't have the priest stand as a legal witness to the marriage. Instead, they both register with the State and have a separate sacramental marriage. Perhaps we will need to follow that route of separation at one point.

That said, I doubt that will happen.

Just some thoughts

I liked that idea from the time I first heard of it. Don't we refer to "holy matrimony" ... do they still say this in civil services? I am unsure.

I hope I am not misunderstood. I will usually say that you can't legislate morality - and I don't believe you can. Morality is an issue within the individual.

My intent was that it would be nice if the laws and morals were perfectly aligned, but that is just a pipe dream. I believe it is impossible to be perfectly established in an imperfect world. Because we are fallen human beings, and we don't all know God or agree on many moral points - it is basically an impossibility.

We can agree of course - at least now! - that murder is wrong. But even that is considered "justifiable" in some places and circumstances, and the associated laws sometimes reflect that.

Come Lord Jesus, Come ...

Not until then will we have such a situation. (And "law" is probably not the right way to say it then even in that case.)

gzt · Jan 21, 2016

By the way, for those thinking that attitudes about premarital sex are "getting worse", this article is from 2003 so it's a little old, but if you look at figure 3 you can note that people who turned 18 in the '60s and '70s seem to have a more liberal attitude about premarital sex compared to people who turned 18 in the '80s and '90s... It is of course possible that something dramatically changed in the last decade, sometimes things do, and this was just the top of the pile of papers.

So also note recent research that projects the current generation of Americans will have, on average, fewer sexual partners than the Baby Boomers. Just a data-driven counterpoint to the narrative of decline.

Harding, David J., and Christopher Jencks. 2003. “Changing Attitudes Toward Premarital Sex: Cohort, Period, and Aging Effects”.The Public Opinion Quarterly 67 (2). [Oxford University Press, American Association for Public Opinion Research]: 211–26. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3521631.

~Anastasia~ · Jan 21, 2016

I don't have scholarly articles, but yes, in the later 60's and early 70's there was a particular push for liberalism as regards sexual matters. "Free Love" ... anybody remember all that?

There may have been a minor bounce back after that. But ... if you work with young people today (at least in some areas), it becomes clear that some of them don't even want to consider sexual intercourse as much a commitment as even physical union of human beings would be. They sometimes approach in very mechanical terms. It seems to me that the term "hooking up" is somewhat telling as regards this attitude.

I would say that yes, there has been a fairly dramatic change in the past - maybe more than decade. I'd look back over perhaps the past 14 years or so?

Of course, as I said, it's not statistical or scholarly - merely my impression given discussion with various people of their observations, and my own as well.

~Anastasia~ · Jan 21, 2016

I should have added, gzt, it depends on one's perspective.

I am looking very narrowly - young unmarried people in the US over the past few decades. If one expands one's view over history, there are certainly far more scandalous attitudes and activities at various times and places.

I'm not sure we can at all say that attitudes are "getting worse" across history.

gzt · Jan 21, 2016

Yes, things wax and wane and move, it's the fashion of the age, so we always have to be careful about narratives of decline. We're not moving toward Soviet-style persecution, and even if there is some kind of present "decay", well, even the Soviets eventually fell. Not that I'm a big fan of things in Russia at the moment, but I'm also not there. We shouldn't fall prey, then, to fear or struggle to tighten the reins of control. Fear and control are not marks of the Church.

dzheremi · Jan 21, 2016

If I had to guess (and I am basically at the cut-off line between "Millennial" and Generation X, in my mid-30s, so I'm talking about people I personally know as well as what I've seen in people about a decade younger than me), I would venture that the idea of "premarital" anything being especially different than "post-marital" probably means very little to a great deal of people around my age, and certainly any number of years younger, since the marriage rate is expected to hit a record low this year, as many of the current generation either forego it altogether or wait well past what has been the historical norm.

From what I have seen, this does not mean that they do not get involved in relationships (or...erm...not relationships), but that the idea of life before and after marriage actually being different makes really no sense, since no one in the world is actually treating marriage as something necessary or desirable, let alone holy as we do.

All this stuff about the Baby Boomers of the 1960s and what absolute trash their sexual morality was (and in many, many cases still is)...yeah...people of my age bracket are their children. Scary.

buzuxi02 · Jan 21, 2016

A few years back my parents were shopping at the largest Greek grocer in Astoria. A Greek news crew was their asking how old they think their children should be before they should engaging in sexual activity. When they asked my dad he ssid, "when they are married". The newswoman giggled and everyone found it funny. Truth is such a question would never have been asked 30 years ago because my dad's answer would have been the correct one.
Today the young ones call it booty call, hooking up, or simply boyfriend or girlfriend till they break up in which they call their ex's by some expletive.
I was joking about it with my co-worker the other day. I work with many young waitresses 17-24. They come back to work during college breaks, all they talk about is saving to go Cancun, Aruba, Dominican Republic, Jamaica for spring break. They go with their borfriends, talk about how great it was 2 weeks later they break up and call them an expletive that rhymes with manhole.... Their parents could care less, let them get drunk, do ecstasy, pot, screw around. "Normal behavior, sowing their oats, their young etc etc.

ZaidaBoBaida · Jan 21, 2016

I have long believed that what happens at the church should be legally separated from what happens in the court house. When Hubman and I were getting married, I wanted to get married at the court house and then have a religious ceremony, but people at my meeting had a fit about that idea. Hubby wanted to keep them happy, and I wanted to keep him happy...

And as far as I can tell - with very little exception premarital sex and premarriage cohabitation are expected parts of the dating experience. When I was engaged people couldn't believe we weren't going to move in together for awhile before "making it legal." While nobody came out and said so, I really felt like some people in our clearness committees just assumed we would be having sex because they acted really shocked when they asked why we wanted such a short engagement, and I came back with, "The Bible says it's better to marry than to burn, and we're about to combust." That and we were hoping a baby would still be possible.

I used to work with a lot of young, college age women at my former part-time job, and I really wondered what happened to feminism. These young women really thought that letting a man buy them dinner and take them to a movie constituted a contractual obligation to have sex. I can't tell you how many times I heard one of them say, "I didn't really want to have sex, but....."

gzt · Jan 21, 2016

It's sad when pretty much any stripe of feminist and pretty much any stripe of Christian and any stripe of, well, pretty much any type of person that has any principles would say that's just a bad thing.

gurneyhalleck1 · Jan 21, 2016

LOL!!!!

Same old song. Greg, don't you play any other tunes!!! You're like the teen at the guitar shop shop can only play Stairway to Heaven over and over!!

My post reveals no such thing.

GregConstantine said:
Gurney's and Orthodoxjay's responses are proof positive that our posts are not being read carefully...

gurneyhalleck1 · Jan 21, 2016

I just wonder how people reconcile being a Libertarian with being Orthodox. One has a core philosophy of "I'm NOT my brother's keeper" in the tradition of Cain. The other is driven by the Gospels, the Beatitudes, radical change through grace, and a strong morality. I cannot in good conscience be a libertarian.

MilesVitae · Jan 21, 2016

gurneyhalleck1 said:
I just wonder how people reconcile being a Libertarian with being Orthodox. One has a core philosophy of "I'm NOT my brother's keeper" in the tradition of Cain. The other is driven by the Gospels, the Beatitudes, radical change through grace, and a strong morality. I cannot in good conscience be a libertarian.

(I don't consider myself libertarian, but I tend to lean further and further in that direction). To believe the state is not the instrument with which society should address most issues is not to say that we don't have a responsibility for addressing those issues in other ways. I'm not sure I understand where you're coming from here. Would you mind explaining?
(My apologies if I'm missing a fuller context here - I admittedly haven't read this entire thread and have only been looking through the more recent pages before reading this. If I'm risking derailing or repeating something, feel free to just PM me instead).

gurneyhalleck1 · Jan 21, 2016

Well, take one issue....

legalizing dope....

"It's none of my business what people do in their own homes! If they want to snort coke, shoot up some smack, suck on a doobie (or ten), suck in the pipe with some crack, maybe partake of a magic mushroom, even though I hate drugs, I'm a libertarian and that stuff is none of my dang business."

I hear this nonsense constantly.

Do I want the parents of my students in my class doing this at home? Do I want my students exposed to this tripe? Do I want a bus driver driving kids after having partied it up last night? Do I want teachers, doctors, nurses, lawyers, cops, IRS tax folks, and other people that can screw us all up taking drugs? Are drugs ever good for society? Would Christ approve? Would Orthodoxy approve? Is there really a good argument here unless you take Cain's position?

"Hey, gay 'marriage' is a victimless crime, baby! Libertarian all the way!"

Is it really? My kids see it. The children adopted by these folks see it and live around it. Society is warped by it. It's unbiblical, un-Orthodox, and perverse. Why should I have a live and let live societal shoulder shrug here?

Abortion..."hey, bro, none of my business? I ain't gonna tell a chick what to do with her body!"

Libertarians have this "mind my own business" mentality not just with government but with society in general. They epitomize the Ayn Rand selfishness rooted in a type of atheistic egotism and they encapsulate the stupidity of secular humanism. "You have your truth, I have mine. Let's leave it at that." Boloney.

MilesVitae said:
(I don't consider myself libertarian, but I tend to lean further and further in that direction). To believe the state is not the instrument with which society should address most issues is not to say that we don't have a responsibility for addressing those issues in other ways. I'm not sure I understand where you're coming from here. Would you mind explaining?
(My apologies if I'm missing a fuller context here - I admittedly haven't read this entire thread and have only been looking through the more recent pages before reading this. If I'm risking derailing or repeating something, feel free to just PM me instead).

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