Domain: polyamory.org
Stories and comments across the archive that link to polyamory.org.
Comments · 7
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Re:Simple answer ...
That's a problem? Too bad. I'm married and then some.
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Re:meter
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Re:Friendster is so 2003
Not to mention "poly" not "polly".
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Re:And...
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Re:I hate big vaginas
I know some of this might come across as rude, but we have obviously crossed the boundaries of normal conversation etiquette...
Please man, get some sex or relationship counseling with your wife or something! You two obviously have problems, and they need to be addressed. I understand you would probably end things if it was easier (no kids, etc.), but at least try and make it better if you have decided to stick with it. You shouldn't have to suffer so much!
And I am not trying to brag at all, because I really do feel for you, but I have escaped at least some of those problems because I am polymorous... I don't think you could swing that now, but for any people just starting out in relationships, I really recommend it. Though who knows - if you wife really doesn't want sex, maybe she would at least be adult enough to let you discreetely 'cheat'. Amazing how nice it feels to remove 90+% of the jealosy in a relationship! My primary right now was a hard-core monogamist "must get married NOW" person when I first met her...7 years ago. Things have been great, and it only took her a few months before she got comfortable with the idea of being poly - and of course, she loves it now (she dates other people far more than I ever have, actually).
And not that I am convinced it is a problem, but the other poster who suggested something like jelq really is right - it does work. Might at least be something to try.
Good luck, anonymous sir. -
Re:blogs from history happen ...Wow, whole books? I take back everything
You should. You really don't want me to get into the subject of biblical contradictions and forgery. Not even the most devout theologians assert the authenticity of much of the New and Old Testament any longer.
Do you know what the majority of those scrolls were?
No, and neither do you. They were destroyed, probably during Theophilus' time.
Except by you, you mean. If anyone is as revisionistic as you seem to think the Christians were, it's modern anti-Christian scholars.
In no century has Christianity regained as much ground in scholarship as in the 20th. You should read Norman Cantor's "Inventing the Middle Ages":
"Therefore, Leo XIII's successor, Pope Pius X, put on the brakes heavily to stop the incipient intellectual and spiritual revolution that was loosely called Catholic modernism. He condemned it as heresy in 1907. The work of the most distinguished Catholic historian of the early church, Louis Duchesne, was unembarrassedly put on the Index of Prohibited Books in 1912, even though Father Duchesne continued to hold a senior position in a clerical institution in Rome until his death in 1922. A chill descended on Catholic historical scholarship, and repressive in- tellectual guidelines were promulgated that were not extensively withdrawn until the 1960s. They have been partly reimposed, with respect to the teaching of theology and sexual ethics, under John Paul II in the 1980s.
"As a result of these starts and stops in the modernization of Catholic culture, rigid codes readily emerged for the way Catholic scholars were supposed to interpret the Middle Ages. It had to be a very defensive approach to the church's role. An extremely positive view of the continuity of a benignly arrayed papal power was prescribed. Catholics could write about the Middle Ages, but only in ways that made the modern church and papacy, held to be the direct continuator of the medieval institution, look very good. Catholic scholars in their invention of the Middle Ages were not to say things that would bring the church and papacy at any time into disrepute or to raise questions about the absolute authority of the papacy or universal ap- plicability of canon law, the merit of religious orders, or the wisdom and learning of medieval Schoolmen. In short, nothing bad about the Middle Ages was to be articulated so as to give comfort to critics of the Catholic Church."
Cantor describes in detail how this new historical tradition was created and how it permeates, to this day, much of historical scholarship about the medieval period. He's professor emeritus of history, sociology and comparative literature at New York University.
Please don't tell me you're using Democritus as the paragon of modern science. Yes, he was an atomist, but his atoms were NOTHING like the atoms of modern atomic theory. Just because he called them atoms and we call them atoms doesn't mean that he was right, and anyone who rejects him is wrong. His atomic theory was an absolute joke.
Democritus correctly realized that the attributes of matter are the attributes of interaction among atoms. He correctly saw them as the smallest building blocks of matter. His theory was logically consistent and not to be surpassed for many centuries. To call it an "absolute joke" is consistent with your demonstrated ignorance.
And a "populated universe"? Where exactly is your evidence of a populated universe? Oh, right, there is none.
Our observations about the universe make the hypothesis of a populated universe (whether intelligently or not is another question) virtually inevitable, as the contrary hypothesis requires the postulation of too many assumptions (Ockham's Razor). The microbiological evidence from neighbouring planets is already fairly strong as well.
Serious (non-bigoted) scholars recognize Christian scholarship as in the tradition of true modern scholarship.
You mean like Roger Bacon, who explained in detail how to catch and ride a dragon? Or your beloved Augustine with his sophisticated demonology? From W.G. Soldan's "Geschichte der Hexenprozesse" (translation mine):
According to Augustine, since the beginning of the world there have been two empires predestined by God and coming true through history, the "civitas Dei", to which all good people and angels belong, and the "civitas Diaboli", which covers the complete demon world. The latter one also includes the "civitas terrena" of Rome with the cult of demons ruling within it. This demon empire, this "civitas Diaboli", still exists, but the church has defeated it (3). - The demons are beings that possess an aerial body (corpus aerium) and therefore they have an inconceivable sensory precision (acrimonia sensus) and quickness of movements (celeritas motus).
(1) "Athanasius". de incarnatione verbi Dei (Basel, 1604, p. 42); "Cyrillus", contra Juhanum Lib. Vl. (Paris, 1572, p. 608).
(2) "Eusebius", Histor. eccles. VII, 17 and "Lactanz", Instit. IV, 27.
(3) Cf. A. Dorner: `Augustinus`, sein theologisches System und seine religionsphilosophische Anschauung (Berl. 1873) p. 97, 299ff., 313.
p80: In addition, by the long duration of their lives they have obtained an experience which a human could never gain in his short lifetime. This "natura aerii corporis" allows the demons to predict future events and to do miraculous things. As the people have recognized superhuman abilities in the demons, they have regarded them as gods and worshiped them with a cult (1). This cult is paganism. - The demons do, for example, have the ability to cause diseases, to pollute the air and to motivate the godless people to do evil deeds. They do this by entering the people who are susceptible because of their ungodliness. They easily manage to achieve this without notice because of their aerial bodies. During the procedure, they mix their thoughts into those of the people (2).
These are basic ideas of Augustine's demonology. For him, the heathen mythology is not based on imagination but on reality. Therefore he explains, for instace, the eternal light in the temple of Venus, which was not harmed by any thunderstorm, with a demon named Venus who either created the impression of a burning light or who actually let the light burn (3). What was told about Circe would be unbelievable by itself, but there were still people today reporting similar things. To support this claim, Augustine states that he has learned in Italy that there were landladies who knew how to turn the incoming travellers into draft animals with the help of cheese they gave them to eat and how to turn them back into humans after they had performed the work imposed upon them (4). Therefore, Augustine was familiar with the idea of animal transformation.
Do you want me to go into the subject of Christian "medicine"?
Hypatia was not a philosopher, as far as we can tell. What we know about her was that she edited and compiled mathematical works, and that she was pretty good at it. Anyway, she was murdered by fanatical monks, not even close to being representative of Christians of her day. Rule #1 of debate: never use fringe particulars to prove a universal. You only end up making yourself look silly. Hypatia doesn't help your argument one iota.
Nonsense, nonsense and more nonsense. Even the revisionist Dzielska calls Hyptia a philosopher, as do all contemporary sources, such as Socrates Scholasticus:
"There was a woman at Alexandria named Hypatia, daughter of the philosopher Theon, who made such attainments in literature and science, as to far surpass all the philosophers of her own time. Having succeeded to the school of Plato and Plotinus, she explained the principles of philosophy to her auditors, many of whom came from a distance to receive her instructions. On account of the self-possession and ease of manner, which she had acquired in consequence of the cultivation of her mind, she not unfrequently appeared in public in presence of the magistrates. Neither did she feel abashed in going to an assembly of men. For all men on account of her extraordinary dignity and virtue admired her the more."
The monks who murdered her were in the direct employ of Cyril, patriarch of Alexandria; his personal Christian Sturmabteiling. Hypatia was murdered for her public lectures, and John of Nikiu calls her a witch:
"And in those days there appeared in Alexandria a female philosopher, a pagan named Hypatia, and she was devoted at all times to magic, astrolabes and instruments of music, and she beguiled many people through (her) Satanic wiles. And the governor of the city honored her exceedingly; for she had beguiled him through her magic. And he ceased attending church as had been his custom."
The earlier remains of "idolatry" were of course destroyed by Theophilus during his storm of the Serapeum and the destruction of the other pagan temples. The murder of Hypatia was consistent with Christian policy of the time, which laid the foundations of later anti-scientism and witchhunts.
But I don't want to omit the Christian perspective on the matter: The History Of Hypatia, A most Impudent School-Mistress of Alexandria: Murder'd and torn to Pieces by the Populace, In Defence of Saint Cyril and the Alexandrian Clergy.
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Censorship lives
and it has nothing to do with the availability of information. How many Americans would ever read the Communist Manifesto? How many Americans would read Atheism: A Philosophical Justification or consider polyamory? Some, I admit, but the fact of the matter is that if you teach them young enough and from all angles that one view is right and the other is absurd, fringe, radical, or evil, the vast majority will reject that view outright, regardless of whether the information is readily available; they simply won't be willing to read it, or take it seriously in the rare case that they do. They certainly won't wait to read both sides before coming to a conclusion. There's more than one way to prevent a society to read, and it seams the censorship of the future is to grind it into them at a young enough age not to question the authority of the government. A few will slip by, but not enough to convince the rest. 90% of the world's humans practice the religion of their parents - the lasting and enormous power of childhood censorship and propaganda cannot be seriously denied.