301. Student's 'Be Happy, Not Gay' t-shirt ok

Comment #169901 by Cartomancer on April 27, 2008 at 4:07 am

Cartomancer suggests in comment 169770 that people, especially teenagers cannot control the results of their emotions at the moment and so shouldn't be expected to. I'm sad that he seems to imply that humans cannot improve themselves either individually or in aggregate.

Now there's an exaggeration and a half! Of course human beings can change and improve themselves, but not indefinitely, not in all things and not uniformly. Human beings are not and cannot be emotionless, coldly logical, Vulcan-like beings - it's simply not possible given the structures of our brains and hormonal systems. It would also be hugely undesirable even if it could be achieved - the mechanisms of insult, offense and sympathy are vital parts of our social structure.

Why should we be teaching the victims of abuse how to tolerate the abuse rather than teaching the abusers that their abuse will not be tolerated in a civilised society? Since when did victims become the ones at fault here - that's a very dangerous and unworthy thing to argue indeed. There is a line that can be crossed between mere ad hominem insults and implicit attacks on someone's right to exist - people should be held to account for causing psychological harm to others, even if it was reckless and unintended.

I can see the benefits of encouraging people not to break down and cry at any little thing, but that's not what we're talking about here. Even those with the strongest mental resolve, if they lack self-confidence and societal support, can be massively damaged by bullying and sustained insensitivity from all directions. It's an immutable part of human psychology. Furthermore, the T-shirt issue is not about whether the slogan on the front is offensive to gay people (it undoubtedly is), but rather about whether the school places absolute freedom of expression above making a statement that it will not tolerate bigotry, narrow-mindedness and discrimination. If schools are for anything in our society it is to educate the young in what is acceptable and what is not - they have a positive duty to clamp down on homophobia in all its forms.

302. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #169799 by Cartomancer on April 26, 2008 at 8:46 pm

Oh dear oh dear oh dear...

I sense a well-meaning individual here, and politeness is always a pleasant surprise from the theistic crowd, so I shall try hard to downplay my scorn for this one.

Unfortunately everything she says is just unsubstantiated assertion by fiat.

It truly is peace from God, it passes all understanding, truly it does.

If it passes all understanding, how come you can understand it? That statement is blatantly self-contradictory.

I've gone through a divorce, deaths in the family, many things in my life, and without my relationship with God, I would probably be a suicidal statistic.

That's evidence for the stability and tenacity of your own mind - it has no bearing on the existence of your imaginary friend. I am sure you do believe it exists, but that's all that's required for psychsomatic phenomena. People all over the world have the same experiences thanks to beliefs in thousands of different gods or none at all.

I have a good feeling most of you have never read the entire Bible, let alone studied it.

That's where you're wrong. Most people on this site seem to have a very good understanding of this particular antique text, not to mention many others. I myself have read the whole sordid collection of fatuous inanities from cover to cover, including the apocrypha, in both the King James and the Vulgate versions, and I've looked at passages from the Vetus Latina and the Septuagint. It's because we've read these kinds of texts with an open mind that we realise how painfully derivative and of a kind they are with other mythical stories. Truly dispassionate study of the bible cannot but lead to this conclusion - only a willfully ignorant person, or someone so enwrapped since early childhood with the fantasy it is anything else could come to a different appraisal.

Hell is a very real place, and the worst part about Hell is that it is the complete absence of God, which is something no man has ever experienced

Evidence for this assertion please...

That's all He wants, people, is just for us to come to Him, love Him, get to know Him.

Evidence for this assertion please...

The complexity of DNA assures me that my (and your) mind will never comprehend how extremely intelligent our God is.

But we do understand how complex our DNA is. Not very as it happens, with only four nucleotide bases and big heaps of junk DNA which don't actually do anything. And what does DNA have to do with gods? The complexities of life and the universe can be explained fine well without recourse to such ideas as gods - they're a spectacularly unparsimonious hypothesis to posit.

Christianity is not a religion. It's a relationship and a way of life. It's a way to be free from sin and destruction of our lives, from addictions and chaos.

Funnily enough I've heard muslims, hindus, sikhs and even one marxist say pretty much the same thing. It was only a matter of time before a christian tried it. For a start, all religions promise the same thing and none of them delivers, yours is no different. Secondly "sin" is a meaningless concept and entirely superfluous to ethical debate, it has no more relevance to the real world than magic does. Thirdly, the quiescence and well-being you feel are entirely self-generated: it's the wonderful complexity of your own brain - an evolved biochemical system - that's doing it. Isn't that a much more wonderful thought than having it all put there by a big sky tyrant on a whim? All the things you are currently chalking up to god are really the workings of mankind - little old us, all on our own. You can still be amazed and heartened and awed at it all, you just don't have to pretend it's caused by a silly supernatural character from a fairytale, and that makes it all the more wonderful.

I'm living in light of the God who CREATED science and all there is left to discover out there! He wants us to discover it. It all points to Him.

How do you know this? Do you not realise how circular this reasoning actually is? If you assume in the first place that it was caused by a god, you're bound to come to that conclusion in the end. How, might I ask, would you falsify that conclusion? What would prove to you that it is not true? If you cannot falsify it, it is a meaningless statement, and thoroughly unscientific.

Here is my challenge: point to a scientific FACT (not a theory or hypothesis) that does not clearly point to God

How about all of them? Every last one. Gravitation, evolution, tectonic plates, quantum phenomena, covalent bonding of atoms, the haber process, the mating habits of dolphins, osmosis, the hydrological cycle, sickle-cell anaemia, radioactive decay, pulsars, the refraction of light, homosexual behaviour in sheep, the atomic weight of boron, game theory...

None of these things "point to god". The existence or not of a god is entirely immaterial to these facts. We understand them, and there is nowhere that we have uncovered a phenomenon which would be demonstrably different were such a creature to exist. I think you need to read The God Delusion, or Bertrand Russell, or indeed anything that challenges your somewhat narrow world view.

Another challenge: call me out on anything you think about or within the pages of the Bible

Why should I want to do that? What is so special about your bible anyway? I've read it several times and it is nothing more than an entirely unremarkable and very badly edited anthology of middle eastern folk myths. The Iliad is much more exciting and much better written, and Sophocles, Aristotle and Cicero provide much more weighty matter for ethical and cultural debate.

The devil is the best deceiver there is

Evidence for the existence of this character please...

303. Student's 'Be Happy, Not Gay' t-shirt ok

Comment #169770 by Cartomancer on April 26, 2008 at 6:08 pm

The way to handle verbal abuse is quite simple: don't feel insulted. Just ignore the ad hominem irrelevancies, resist the temptation to succumb to the style over substance fallacy, and focus on whatever objective claims the other person is making. Cultivate sangfroid.

I disagree. It is rarely possible to stifle or limit one's natural emotional responses through the sheer application of cold, dispassionate reason - Plato's charioteer is a passable, but fundamentally flawed model of the human mind. For vulnerable, hormonally-charged teenagers it is next to impossible to do this. Furthermore, the best way to give teenagers the confidence they need to confront bigoted idiots like this one is to show them that the society of which they are a part does not put up with his sort.

I also think it is essential that we do feel offended at things which are genuinely offensive. The more we try to denature ourselves to our emotions, the less effective those emotions will be as guides to the conduct of our lives.

304. Student's 'Be Happy, Not Gay' t-shirt ok

Comment #169764 by Cartomancer on April 26, 2008 at 5:52 pm

I don't even see a problem in saying "this is so gay". I wouldn't think most people who say that are raving homophobes, it's just an expression.

I have had this discussion with my students before. I will admit that it is hardly the most damaging slur one could come up with, but I still think that ignoring the association of "gay" with "frivolous", "feeble" or "lame" is a mistake. The underlying origins of the term are too prominent to make me feel entirely comfortable there. I will be happy letting it go when I have heard gay people themselves using it in this way without taking it as a slur on their orientation.

305. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #169757 by Cartomancer on April 26, 2008 at 5:36 pm

Ah, now bread pudding is an entirely different animal from bread and butter pudding. A well-made bread pudding will keep a family of miners alive for months, and can be used in emergencies for plugging holes in a sinking ship.

306. Student's 'Be Happy, Not Gay' t-shirt ok

Comment #169754 by Cartomancer on April 26, 2008 at 5:32 pm

Most of my opinion (or insight, depending on your view) comes from having a younger brother who is gay

It is always harder with the people we know and love. There is so much more invested there to lose. When I was in closeted denial I feared my identical twin brother finding out more than anyone else (even the best friend who I had fallen in love with). Indeed, when I finally did come out to all my friends, it took me another nine months to pluck up the courage to tell my brother, and it was still very difficult.

I still haven't actually told my parents. I expect they've probably figured it out by now though.

307. Student's 'Be Happy, Not Gay' t-shirt ok

Comment #169753 by Cartomancer on April 26, 2008 at 5:28 pm

The nature/nurture argument about the causes of homosexuality has been a highly politicised one for decades. I think I said something about this a while back. Let me see... ah yes, here it is

http://richarddawkins.net/articleComments,2380,Gods-cure-for-gays-lost-in-sin,SMH,page6#148402

I'm not sure, however, that the biggest implication of the "late onset" of homosexuality is the illusion it gives to some people that it is a chosen behaviour. In my experience the fact that teenagers have only recently become aware of their sexuality and the fact they have the option of trying to hide and suppress it makes for a cruel and interesting interplay.

Suppression of one's feelings can lead to all sorts of psychological damage. Especially when you feel the need to suppress them from yourself. I don't think my self-confidence has ever recovered from the years I spent as a teenager trying to hide who I was from my own consciousness, not to mention the awareness of everyone around me. It wasn't fear of bullying in my case, but rather the expectations I had of how my friends and family would think about me if I revealed that I was gay.

308. Student's 'Be Happy, Not Gay' t-shirt ok

Comment #169743 by Cartomancer on April 26, 2008 at 5:02 pm

I think Zeke has the measure of it. Certainly sounds reminiscent of some of my school experiences.

309. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #169739 by Cartomancer on April 26, 2008 at 4:48 pm

The bread and butter pudding is one of my favourites. Most people think they should be made using slightly stale bread in order to use it up, but it tastes much better if, instead of bread, you use croissants. Preferably reasonably fresh ones rather than the ones you get in sealed bags at the supermarket. Break them up, put in a shallow pyrex dish and intersperse with shredded chunks of white chocolate. Then prepare the custard mixture from three whole eggs, the yolks of three or four more eggs, a little milk or cream, vanilla essence and sugar. You might like to add a bit of whiskey or some such to the custard if it is your wont. Pour over the croissants and leave to soak in. Sprinkle with sugar for a slightly crunchy brown crust and put in the oven to bake until golden brown for 20-30 minutes at about 200 celsius. Remove, leave to cool and serve with cream or ice cream. Also delicious cold.

The walnut cake is a little more involved, but the secret behind that one is dark muscovado sugar and flavour the mixture with a little almond oil. Oh, and don't chop the walnuts too finely. And use at least four eggs to about 200g of flour, most people use far too few. Contrary to popular belief I do not get royalties from the British Egg Marketing Board.

The people of my village don't call me the Queen of Puddings for nothing!

310. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #169732 by Cartomancer on April 26, 2008 at 4:37 pm

Well, if others think there is a constituency for that kind of thing as humour then who am I to reject it out of hand? It never ceases to amaze me just how different some people's sense of humour is from mine. A salutary lesson in human diversity perhaps...

Could I ask Remnant where people like me who don't drink alcohol at all fit into the theory though? Actually, scratch that, the less encouragement we give him the better...

311. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #169724 by Cartomancer on April 26, 2008 at 4:28 pm

I read it as a huge 'distraction' piece.

Hmm, maybe you're right. It's certainly stopped me thinking about his pettifogging religious inanities. Something of a foot-shot perhaps in that now we're wondering quite what sort of mind resorts to that as their smokescreen, but I guess there are mysteries beyond the ken of science after all...

Is it baking night on RD.net now then? Shall I share my special recipe for walnut cake or bread and butter pudding?

312. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #169713 by Cartomancer on April 26, 2008 at 4:12 pm

I really am baffled as to what Remnant was hoping to achieve with his very strange post about liberals, conservatives and beer. Surely it's some kind of joke? The phrasing seems consistent with an attempt at humour, but what it says isn't actually funny. Not in the slightest. It isn't really offensive, because it's too silly to be offensive, but it isn't funny either. It seems to serve no purpose whatsoever.

Now, don't get me wrong, I have encountered this brand of boorish philistine americana before. Usually it conveys the impression of having been written by a lumpen, semi-literate maniac who has to stop to wipe the spittle from his keyboard every five minutes. But Remnant's piece seemed to be entirely lacking in such marks of childish frenzy. I might almost have thought it a satirical piece, but it was so devoid of wit and cleverness - even crashingly poor attempts at wit and cleverness - that I am all but compelled to abandon the notion. I can't bring myself to believe that anyone with opposable thumbs would take such a tract seriously either - even someone like Remnant, whose idea of ethical debate is the competitive regurgitation of bible quotes.

And why was the second part essentially an abridged version of the first part with a couple of extra sentences tacked on? That really is very confusing too.

Perhaps I simply lack the analytical tools with which I might understand the workings of such a tiny mind. Perhaps there is nothing there to understand at all. Perhaps I should just take the Alovrin approach, pretend it's meant in all seriousness, and laugh along anyway...

313. Student's 'Be Happy, Not Gay' t-shirt ok

Comment #169324 by Cartomancer on April 25, 2008 at 7:11 pm

I don't really get this. Surely the school is entitled to have any dress code it wants? If the problem is "stifling freedom of expression" then surely the regular school uniform worn on all the other days would be prohibited, because pupils must wear it and therefore are unable to express themselves sartorially to the fullest of their ability. Likewise, teachers could be fired for telling pupils to shut up or sit down, because talking and standing up are modes of self-expression too. What about the pupil who chooses to spray graffiti on the walls - surely he's only expressing himself and should be legally protected from anyone trying to stop him doing so?

314. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #168239 by Cartomancer on April 24, 2008 at 7:27 pm

Oops, God debunked your source as well.

Such a shame for you that Mr. Pratchett actually exists, whereas your god character is just a poorly-written work of fantasy fiction. Pratchett has written far more convincing gods than all the bronze-age tribes of the middle east put together. Men like him created your god all those years ago, so if anyone deserves respect and veneration from an admirer of such characters it is he!

Would you like to stop begging the question with your fatuous circular reasoning and give us something intelligent to comment on now?

Seeing, contrary to popular wisdom, isn't believing. It's where belief stops, because it isn't needed any more.
- Pyramids

315. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #168232 by Cartomancer on April 24, 2008 at 7:18 pm

Sorry but you prayer theory was debunked by God.

Unfortunately for you it is amply confirmed by a much greater authority - that of Terry Pratchett himself:

There were all sorts of ways to petition the Great God, but they depended largely on how much you could afford, which was right and proper and exactly how things should be. After all, those who had achieved success in the world clearly had done it with the approval of the Great God, because it was impossible to believe that they did it with his disapproval... But there were always the improvident, the stupid and those who, because of some flaw or oversight in this life or the a past one, were not even able to afford a pinch of incense. And the Great God, in His wisdom and mercy as filtered through his priests, had made provision for them.

- Small Gods, p. 67

There. My authority is better than yours, so I win!

And to finish on another pearl of wisdom from the writings of the Great Man himself:

Gods don't like people not doing much work. People who aren't busy all the time might start to think.

316. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #168219 by Cartomancer on April 24, 2008 at 7:00 pm

Modern science was birthed under Christianity with many of the fathers of many disciplines people of faith.

"Birthed under" is a very curious phrase to choose here. I was "birthed under" the Margaret Thatcher government, but does that mean I owe her anything? Am I, as a product of 1983, a vicious uber-capitalistic Conservative vampire? Is Thatcherite Conservatism any good for my continued well-being today? Does it not, rather, work actively against me and the general well-being of the society it so crassly denies?

317. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #168209 by Cartomancer on April 24, 2008 at 6:43 pm

One can't help but wonder just what this remnant character is actually a remnant of. The Middle Ages perhaps?

I'll still pray for her. You can't do a thing about it little man.

What about if he prays even harder for you to stop praying? Surely if prayer has any efficacy then that would work? And if it doesn't then why are you doing it in the first place eh?

318. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #167564 by Cartomancer on April 24, 2008 at 7:03 am

yuck.sounds like a quote from a member of NAMBLA.

Sigh... I get that quite often. It is rather irritating, and pretty offensive when you think about it - being lumped in with paedophiles because of my entirely normal and entirely legal sexual preferences for the younger man.

I get the feeling that a straight 24 year old male who expressed a preference for 18 year old females would not be chastised nearly as often. C'est la vie...

319. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #167548 by Cartomancer on April 24, 2008 at 6:48 am

Facial hair makes men look like men rather than boys. I can't understand why this isn't considered something attractive. I do think Dennett's beard is rather excessive though.

De gustibus non disputandum est... (and now I'm going to ignore my own advice)

I can't stand facial hair on men myself, and I don't like body hair either. Much prefer the smooth, boyish look. I guess it's a question of taste, but facial hair (especially white or grey facial hair) generally makes men look a lot older - and youth is something that most societies have considered sexually attractive. Testosterone levels are generally highest in men from about 18-25, so it makes a kind of sense that this is when they should be at their most alluring. At least that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!

Dennett's beard makes him look like he's well into his nineties. A good look for appearing wise and grandfatherly, but not something to stir the blood in a sexual way I fear...

320. Russell T Davies: Return of the (tea) Time Lord

Comment #167535 by Cartomancer on April 24, 2008 at 6:36 am

It doesn't follow that homosexuals are unable to or unwilling to have offsprings. I think you are mistaking cultural attitude as biology.

While homosexuality may have a biological factor, the gay identity is a rather recent cultural construct. I am annoyed whenever I read so and so (fill in the blanks for your favourite historical personality) was gay. The concept didn't exist then.

Yes, but homosexual behaviour in animals is not affected by the cultural factors which affect humans, and there are plenty of examples of animals - and humans throughout history - that only indulge in same-sex mating behaviour. It is even possible to create them in the lab with hormonal treatments and surgery during early development (in rats at least). In order to explain the occurrence of homosexuality you have to do it in animals first, and cultural factors cannot be a part of that explanation.

Have there actually been any studies done on the sexual orientation of the children of homosexual or bisexual parents? I can imagine that, until recently, there simply wouldn't have been any reliable way to gather a sufficient sample of such individuals. I do recall, however, that studies have been done which find a much greater incidence of homosexuality in the maternal families of homosexual men than those of straight ones - surely that's strong evidence of a genetic component.

And, even though I am living proof that identical twins can be of differing sexual orientations, the twin studies do show that a very significant number of identical twins share the same sexual orientation, whereas non-identical fraternal twins do not to nearly the same extent. There is really no other explanation for that than a genetic one.

321. Mecca should become core to measure time zones: scholars

Comment #167222 by Cartomancer on April 23, 2008 at 6:18 pm

I actually own a couple of anticlockwise-turning clocks. They're nothing new. I bought them from a specialist left-handed shop a few years back - I just find it much easier for my heavily left-handed brain to fathom the time when it's going in that direction (though I much prefer digital ones to be honest).

And to think that the Islamic world was at the forefront of mechanical engineering and scientific endeavour a millennium ago...

322. Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying propaganda

Comment #167199 by Cartomancer on April 23, 2008 at 5:57 pm

Dance we now our merry dance,
the steps laid down so long ago,
we wait for any tiny chance,
that evidence will be on show.

Gavotte, recline, in double time,
as yet another takes the floor,
you know your parts, take up your arts,
his arguments are just as poor.

We waltz, we spin, he twists and turns,
we cry so plaintive, ask for proof,
he weaves, he ducks, but ne'er returns
with facts to firmly face the truth

We wail, we cry, he blinks his eye,
then points it out for all to see,
he laughs, he jeers, and through the tears,
says "can't reduce complexity"

We shake our heads, try not to shout,
confront and educate the feller,
And once we've pointed that one out
he brings up protein-based flagella.

He slips, he trips, away he chips
no theories of his own to test
predictions none, away he runs,
the truth is not his interest.

On and on we tread the stage,
cavorting to the same refrain,
no substance, only facile rage,
the same old stuff warmed up again.

323. Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying propaganda

Comment #167142 by Cartomancer on April 23, 2008 at 4:59 pm

Looks like I missed out on the sport again. Natch. Oh well, this one seems to be one of those terribly humourless self-important types who deals in little more than soundbites and other people's footnotes. Not a flattering characteristic when combined with the usual creationist inability to respond to questions and a penchant for focussing on irrelevant tangential minutiae.

He'll wear his scissors blunt and run his paste pot dry long before he ever comes up with an original thought. So very disappointing...

324. Investigating Atheism

Comment #167126 by Cartomancer on April 23, 2008 at 4:34 pm

I knew it would all end in tears when we let them escape and found their own university out in the marshes in 1209. Possibly a bit late now to revoke their independence and recall them all to Oxford where we can keep a close eye on them, but worth a try I feel.

To do my bit for the reclamation of the wayward Cambridge Loons I can put up a couple of theologians on my floor in Summertown, and maybe there's room in the wardrobe for a small deacon if he takes his hat off. Anyone else want to volunteer and help out in the cause of academic freedom?

325. Lynchings in Congo as penis theft panic hits capital

Comment #166619 by Cartomancer on April 23, 2008 at 10:46 am

This sounds like something straight out of a cultural anthropology textbook or an egyptian magical papyrus. How intellectually backwards can these poor benighted people be?

Still, penis theft does sound a rather amusing idea. I wonder what it is that the Congolese sorcerers need all those penises for? Maybe I'm in the wrong magical profession - all I get to play with are these boring old tarot cards...

326. Russell T Davies: Return of the (tea) Time Lord

Comment #166142 by Cartomancer on April 22, 2008 at 8:00 pm

jac12358 -

For a start I think it would help if you stopped conflating everything that I say with everything that Steve Zara says. You and he have had your disagreements on other topics, and clearly you feel somewhat aggrieved at the way he has argued against you in the past. This does not mean that I or anyone else should be lumped in with your criticisms of him - we might both be gay and, coincidentally, agree on many issues, but that does not mean we are both part of some big conspiracy and therefore singing from the same hymn sheet.

Similarly, I cannot be held to task for "misrepresenting you" by only bringing up those points you make which I disagree with. If someone wants to find out precisely what else you have said they can go back and look at it in your own posts - they do not have to rely on my responses to piece together your arguments. If I do not mention something you said, it is usually because I do not think it worth commenting on - I might agree with it, I might not, but there is no onus on me to mention it simply because you did so.

But here, at least, the way to change things is through debate and then voting on that change. As I am in the majority and you the minority, you quite rightly are the one advocating change, and to accomplish this you must bear the burden of advocating your point of view.

But I'm not the one advocating change. You are. I'm quite happy with the increasing presence of gay characters and storylines on TV - you're the one who wants to change that. Also, this isn't a legal or political issue we are discussing - it's a cultural one. Unless you really do want to impose strict statuary censorship on all aspects of our TV output? Culture is not democratic, and it certainly is not ochlocratic - in fact the generation of art is among the most individually-driven phenomena in human society. The body concerned is the BBC, which has its own agendas, its own funding and its own creative rationale. It is not tied to audience figures or sponsorship because it is funded by the license fee - and that, combined with its decades of experience and ethic of professionalism, is what makes it such a peerless broadcasting service: easily the best in the world by miles.

To label (or suggest) me (incorrectly) as a homophobic ignoramus does nothing to further your cause NOR convince me, and as such bears a resemblance to what some view Dawkins does in alienating religious people by insulting them rather than trying to persuade them.

It wasn't me who suggested you were homophobic - it was the tone and content of your postings themselves which gave that impression. By merely underlining the way you came across I could have achieved one of two things - if you were not really homophobic then you would be encouraged to examine the way you put the arguments across so as not to appear that way next time, or if you were out-and-out homophobic then you would be exposed as such and I could safely ignore and ridicule you because I would know that you would not be willing to change your mind. I like to think I have achieved more of the former than the latter, but I'm still not entirely convinced.

No, no. Good try with: democracy = mob rule. For the minority to exert any form of rule over the majority would require brute force, mandated ignorance and an establishment of a self-elected elite few who "know best."

If you look at what I actually said, I did not make a bald equation of democracy with mob rule. In fact I said that you seemed to be espousing one and not the other, which cannot but be interpreted as implying that there is a difference. "Democracy" as we understand it involves rule by and on behalf of ALL the people, majority or minority, whoever they happen to be. A huge part of that is sensitivity to minority issues. You're right that for the minority to rule over the majority, such that the majority have no say at all, there has to be some kind of elaborate power structure in place. You are also right that this structure would have to be maintained by complex social, economic and military conditions, and that this is not democracy. But the rule of the majority over the minorities in a similar way is not democracy either. All that requires is a simple exertion of numerical strength - mob rule. It's very easy to achieve indeed, often without thinking, and so it happens remarkably frequently. A truly enlightened form of government, one which deserves the name of democratic, takes the needs and interests of everybody into account and does not value one group above another. Often the best way to achieve this is very much NOT to put the issues to a public vote - because all that would do is reinforce majority prejudices. As a matter of fact we do rely to a massive extent on people who "know better" in our governmental systems - all those select committees and government ministers and experts who draft the legislation, all those ranks of civil servants who enact it. To use a particularly apposite example, if the recommendations Wolfenden Committe Report had been put to a public vote in 1967 then do you think we would have legalised homosexual sex two years later? With public feeling in Britain being what it was about gay people, not a bloody chance! It is precisely in situations such as these that we NEED to follow the guidance of people who know better than the majority.

For this reason romatic kissing is best left for soap-operas and dramas. Kids don't need to witness erotic behavior of any kind. If they see it in passing, fine, but one should not endeavor to contrive a situation where they are being captively entertained and then suddenly exposed to it.

Well, as long as you realise this is an entirely separate debate from the homosexuality issue, you have a legitimate suggestion that can be discussed. My personal opinion on this (entirely separate) issue, however, is that deliberately keeping children away from depictions of sexual behaviour is probably a damaging thing for them in the long run. If we grow up thinking of sex as something taboo, forbidden, sordid, improper and to be avoided then we will have all sorts of problems and neuroses about it when we finally come to an age where we naturally want to explore it. Look at the terrible mess Victorian sexual mores turned out to be. Look at how high the teenage pregnancy rates are in European countries with this kind of repressive taboo attitude toward exposing children to the idea of sex (Catholic Ireland and post-Victorian England to name but two) as opposed to more open places (such as Scandinavia and Holland) where sex is much less of a big deal to children and adolescents. I know I suffered terribly, and to some extent still do, from growing up thinking that sex was the sort of sordid adult thing, like drinking, smoking and drugs, which good little boys simply didn't get involved with. Combine that with an almost total lack of exposure to positive gay role models in the media when I was a teenager and I ended up with nothing I might use to disabuse myself of this notion until I was into my twenties.

But if sexual activity is what I'm suggesting we avoid showing to kids, then what is left to show to them? What is left is "a person." The label "gay" becomes irrelevant because the behavior the label implies is not going to be publically viewed.

What about social partnerships such as marriage or boyfriend / girlfriend relationships? I refer you back to my Paddington Bear example - we don't see Mr. and Mrs. Brown having sex, or even kissing, but the very fact they are a married man and woman living together as a family implies inescapably that they are heterosexual. The fact they have children implies inescapably that they have actually had sex at least once! Do parents write in complaining that this suggests improper sexual content to their children? Of course not. If it were Mr. and Mr. Brown living together it wouldn't suggest any more sexual content either - but it would make the idea of gay people living together in society as partners seem entirely normal and unremarkable - as it very much should be. To use your own example of policemen and soldiers, the equivalent would be to include them as characters but never let them wear uniforms or do anything to indicate that they actually are policemen or soldiers. A soldier can march around in uniform and help out with sandbagging against a flood - he doesn't have to bayonet people or take over oil-rich Middle Eastern states on screen for us to know he is a soldier. Likewise two gay men can simply hold hands or walk down the road arm in arm - they don't have to be buggering each other for us to know that they prefer the company of their own gender.

Hence, when I generously and cautiosuly err IN FAVOR of my "opponent" by a margin on 200% AND AM STILL criticized, then I am at a complete loss. For some, whatever you do is never good enough, give an inch and they expect a mile, etc...)

How many times do I have to point this out: the statistics on this issue are not a matter of taking sides. They are a matter of scientific inquiry. Saying that there are more gay people than there actually are is not "erring in my favour" - It might be easier for me to find a boyfriend if a higher percentage of the population were amenable to my advances, but misrepresenting the statistics does not make it so. The way to improve things for a minority is not to make that minority bigger (impossible in most cases) but to start taking its particular minority needs seriously. Numbers are utterly irrelevant - it is about societal well-being and provision for personal equality. The only fair percentage for representation of gay people on television is "whatever percentage is necessary to deal properly with their issues in the current cultural climate", something which cannot be pinned down or forced into narrow numerical limits. It might take 5%, 10%, 50% or even more to get the job done at some point, so just doubling the population statistic is no answer at all. Effectively what you're saying with that "solution" is that it should be done entirely on percentage of the population anyway, and we should double it just to be sure we don't go lower than some of our estimates for that figure. This still bases it on census data, which is inadequate and inappropriate.

327. Sexpelled: No Intercourse Allowed

Comment #162880 by Cartomancer on April 17, 2008 at 4:04 pm

But I've had sex literally several times, and never once have I had babies.

This new stork theory seems pretty convincing to me...

328. Russell T Davies: Return of the (tea) Time Lord

Comment #162828 by Cartomancer on April 17, 2008 at 2:11 pm

Well then, off to the priesthood for me it is...

329. Russell T Davies: Return of the (tea) Time Lord

Comment #162819 by Cartomancer on April 17, 2008 at 2:01 pm

That is a probably a bit above the level at which selection can work.

I thought it sounded a bit tenuous to be honest. Shows what happens when you let intellectual historians speculate on biology - or rather turn amateur anthropologist and then speculate on biology!

But maybe the priesthood thing is a cultural adaptation grounded in this sort of evolved non-reproductive child-rearing behaviour? Possibly the advent of agricultural societies made it less necessary to have non-reproductive individuals in each family, but they were still knocking around thanks to their evolved genetics and had to find something else to do to make themselves useful? Doesn't seem too much of a big step to me from helping close relatives deal with their problems to helping society at large (even if it is through the expedient of well-meaning goat sacrifice and the wearing of silly hats in public).

330. Victims: Pope Benedict Protects Accused Pedophile Bishops

Comment #162812 by Cartomancer on April 17, 2008 at 1:47 pm

I think the fact that the catholic priesthood attracts both homosexuals AND paedophiles has led to a lazy (or wilful in many cases) confusion between the two.

(oops, seems Al-rawandi has already said as much while I was typing that)

331. Russell T Davies: Return of the (tea) Time Lord

Comment #162804 by Cartomancer on April 17, 2008 at 1:38 pm

Thanks for that Steve, I knew you'd be able to say it far better than waffly old me ever could.

I am made to recall, however, some idle musings I had a while back on the subject, thanks to the conflation of several things I had read about tangentially.

First, I heard somewhere that there have been studies done which correlate fairly precisely the size of primate brains and the size of their normal social groups. Extending this calculation to humans reveals that we are predisposed to tribal groupings of about 150 individuals - which tallies quite nicely with the archaeological evidence we have for prehistoric human settlement (and the social networks of most pre-modern humans).

Secondly, the most common and up-to-date statistics I have managed to track down for the incidence of human homosexuality state that roughly 5% of males and 0.7% of females are thus configured. I shall assume that these proportions have not changed significantly since our earliest socieites, though I may be wrong in doing so.

Thirdly, my interest in the history of the occult has led me to note that there is a strong link made in many cultures, going back to the earliest writing and even pictorial representations, between homosexuality and the magical, the spiritual or the otherworldly. Many iron age cultures seem to have had lesbian priestesses and gay priests for instance (the term dyke may even come from the Greek dike meaning justice, suggesting some kind of arbitrator role as well). Being outside the reproductive cycle has often afforded individuals a similar status outside normal social hierarchies.

Now, assuming that this kind of priestly / shamanistic / magical behaviour emerged directly from social structuring activities in increasingly specialised primate populations, it might be possible to link all this information together and come to a tentative explanation for why the incidence of human homosexuality is at the level it is.

In the standard human social group of 150 individuals you would typically have one lesbian and about three or four gay men. This seems to me a pretty reasonable priestly caste, counselling service, organisational committe and all-purpose civil administration for an early human tribe of such a size. Maybe the lesbian would act as the high priestess or chief's advisor, while the rest of the population would be split between the auspices of the gay men with each one ministering to say thity-five individuals. Intermarriage between the tribe's lesbian priestess or gay priests and another tribe's homosexual contingent could help to foster good relations further afield - and might avoid succession issues that would accompany royal marriages between heterosexual chiefs.

I am reminded that several cultures have legends of prehistoric female rulers. Minoan legends tell of how, before Minos and the line of "historical" kings, Crete was always ruled by two queens together (hence the use of the Minoan labrys as an identifier symbol by modern lesbians). Some Japanese legends also make reference to a pre-imperial time when the islands were ruled by a dynasty of mysterious shaman queens.

So is this kind of social structure an evolutionarily stable strategy for managing the affairs of human tribes? Might it have evolved that way? Is that the kind of group selection up with which we loyal Dawkinseans will not put?

332. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #162757 by Cartomancer on April 17, 2008 at 12:09 pm

Goodness defined by god's nature? Somebody has been reading their Augustine...

333. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #162709 by Cartomancer on April 17, 2008 at 10:23 am

Clearly I'm not nearly the dashing time lord I'd like to be. I missed the compliments on the new photo when they happened and, despite my drug-addled musings on the subject a few days ago, I have yet to perfect the technology to travel back to earlier this afternoon in a small public service box and express my gratitude then.

My brother did once say to me that when I get dressed up to go out, I invariably look like I'm off to a tacky Doctor Who convention. It's not my fault that my mother knits me eighteen foot long scarves and I have a complete inability to determine whether I look like a twat in a waistcoat or not.

I guess I'll just stick to the psycho-conductive tarot cards then. And I won't even start on the things I get up to with a sonic screwdriver...

334. Victims: Pope Benedict Protects Accused Pedophile Bishops

Comment #162705 by Cartomancer on April 17, 2008 at 10:13 am

Heretic!!!!!!!! Call me a fucktard, but please don't call me a Catholic!!!!!!

I expect most of the imaginary beings on the list would object to that label too. I just hope Gay Jesus and Harold Bishop don't find out...

335. Victims: Pope Benedict Protects Accused Pedophile Bishops

Comment #162345 by Cartomancer on April 16, 2008 at 5:15 pm

So, maybe more like:

god
The God Delusion
jesus
gay jesus
holy spirit
white spirit
smells like teen spirit
holy mary mother of god
mary mary quite contrary
seraphim
cherubim
ophanim
dominions
virtues
powers
Vimto
principalities
archangels
angels
Angel from Buffy
Riley from Buffy
Buffy herself
Saint Augustine
Saint Thomas Aquinas
Saint Bonaventure
The Saint (Roger Moore version)
other saints
the pope
the antipope
the energy created from collisions between the pope and the antipope
cardinals
ordinals
archbishop
bishop
Harold Bishop
bashing the bishop
rook
queen
knight
pawn
porn
hard core porn
archdeacon
deacon
priest
paedophile priest
Father Ted
Father Jack
Father Dougal
Irate_Atheist
curate
verger
altar boy
altered boy
whipping boy
church organist
church mouse

layman

336. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #162327 by Cartomancer on April 16, 2008 at 3:32 pm

Oh come on, you think someone as crafty as old Richard Morgan would do something like this by halves? Especially knowing that Robertson trolls this site like the hosts of Mordor themselves.

337. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #162320 by Cartomancer on April 16, 2008 at 3:13 pm

I have a sneaking suspicion our friend Richard Morgan might be playing that dastard Robertson for all he's worth. Sounds too good to be true to my cynical ears...

338. School bars same-sex partners at formals

Comment #162187 by Cartomancer on April 16, 2008 at 9:39 am

Hope I am not one of the people of whom you despair.

I seem to be causing confusion like that a lot on here these days. I should probably try to be clearer in future just who the targets of my ire actually are (in this case the homophobes, and most certainly not you!)

339. School bars same-sex partners at formals

Comment #162172 by Cartomancer on April 16, 2008 at 9:12 am

I think the ickyness factor is indeed a huge part of the problem. I'm not sure why it is so viceral but it certainly can be. For some reason too it is male homosexuality that is considered icky and not the lesbian variety. Further I am lost as to why the reaction to male=male anal sex is often so visceral considering that the male-female version is so popular.
Its all very confusing.

I despair of some people, really I do. I think that you can go some way toward explaining it with certain basic psychological models and historically prevalent ideas - anachronistic concepts of masculinity and emasculation we have inherited from the Romans and beyond. For all his bonkers speculation, Nietzche's resume of classical opinions on proper male-female power relations through the sexual act seems surprisingly pertinent to the attitudes of many modern homophobes.

Then there are the callous ones who assume that just because we're a minority we don't deserve an equal share in what everyone else has - and think that all there is to gay people is having sex. We even get these sorts of covert homophobes coming on here and masquerading as rational thinkers sometimes, as my exchange on the Russell T. Davies thread attests.

And then there's the religious ones of course, whose books talk only of male homosexuality, not of lesbianism. And the closeted self-hating brigade, with whom this group has a surprising degree of overlap.

Ultimately we have an awful lot of cultural baggage still to shed.

340. Russell T Davies: Return of the (tea) Time Lord

Comment #162158 by Cartomancer on April 16, 2008 at 8:41 am

Anyway, that is all for now. Let's get back to the original topics, please. I am out of my league to say anything more in this area, I think you will agree (probably barring me from saying anything, I imagine), but am entitled to what I've said, and certainly reflects more than my own views. I've heard yours. Let others decide or chime in, and let there be a variety of respondents.

Translation - "I don't want to argue any more, I just want you to accept that my arguments are valid even though you don't think they are".

If anyone is playing the victim here it is you. It is very telling that you start your rant with a, frankly irrelevant, diatribe about how you feel your views are not given fair airing - and then once you've stated them tell us you're not interested in hearing anyone else's rebuttals. If you genuinely were ostracised and censored then we wouldn't bother arguing against you - we'd just tag you as offensive and report you to the authorities, trying to get you removed. Criticism of your views is not tantamount to stifling debate on them - precisely the opposite in fact. Get over your wounded pride and try seeing things from a perspective other than your own for a change eh?

But that's the problem isn't it? You see the world as simply one big capitalistic nightmare, where money is the only thing that talks and human solidarity can be chalked up as numbers on a balance sheet. It's all the red-in-tooth-and-claw competition between interest groups isn't it, with the strong inevitably triumphing over the weak? Well I have news for you - society does not have to work that way. It's not a question of a clique of self-interested gay people working hard towards a "revolution" where we somehow fleece the majority of society into doing what is best for us and worst for them. It's a question of the entirety of society re-evaluating their views and doing what is best for everyone, each according to their own needs. Straight and gay people should and do work together to end discrimination - just as black and white, disabled and able-bodied, male and female have done. If you try to run society simply by the unexamined will of the unthinking majority you don't get democracy, you get ochlocracy - mob rule.

And yes, we have only picked up on some of your points rather than others. That's because we disagree with those points most strongly. That's how debate works. Should we criticise everything about China simply because we disagree with their human rights record? What kind of a stupid argument is that?

I should reiterate that it is YOU who consistently confuses the issues of gay/straight representation on TV and the prominence of sexually explicit imagery - and you've made it pretty clear that you do this because you find it difficult to think of gay people in any other way but a sexual one. They're two separate issues - get over it.

And you still cannot get over the fact that you're just as biased in this debate as either of us. It doesn't matter that yours is the majority position - a pro-majority bias is still a bias. You have completely failed to realise that simply presenting gay people only 5% of the time is, de facto, discriminatory in today's climate. There are important issues and stories that need to be told about gay issues - and society needs more than a paltry twentieth of its consciousness to devote to those issues right now. Many young gay people spend 100% of their lives having to cope with these problems - and you would deny them inclusion in society simply because you are obsessed with the accurate portrayal of population demographics? What right have you to stifle the vital world-changing power of art and ruin young lives simply because you want to exult in the numerical superiority of your kind? The word Phillistine is simply too weak for that kind of boorish, inconsiderate attitude.

Hold me back Steve, or I'll get really mad if I'm not careful...

341. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #161966 by Cartomancer on April 15, 2008 at 9:43 pm

It's way past my bed time, and I'm currently drugged up to the gunwales on all kinds of stuff to calm me down, so I apologise in advance for my musings. I think a little light relief is required now.

What do you do if you have a time machine, but it's not a very good one? In fact it's crap. Lets call it the Cartomancer MkIV Time Toilet for good measure (my apologies to Day of the Tentacle). Your time toilet only has a fixed range in time to which it can travel - an hour or so either way say, or maybe only a couple of minutes. Now, you have a very important date a few hours ago that you simply have to make, or something horribly bad will happen (burned cakes, accidental destruction of entire universe, Wooter will eat the soap, that sort of thing). This horribly bad thing is unfolding and getting worse over time too (cakes getting more burned, universe getting more accidentally destroyed, Wooter finishing the soap and moving on to the shampoo, deodorants, towels, toothbrushes etc). Eventually the horribly bad thing will reach the time you're currently in and catch up with you, and then you're for it. But hey, you're a fairly nifty chrono-plumber, and through working on and altering the construction of your time toilet you can extend its temporal range a bit. The more you work on it, the further back it can go - but of course working on it will take up your precious time and move you further and further away from your date with destiny. You are now in the unpleasant position of having to work fast enough that you can get more time-travelling performance out of your machine than you are losing through modifying it in the first place - and you will have to maintain this pace of work long enough to get back those vital hours and save your precious cakes/universe/bathroom cabinet contents.

Let x = the initial rate of time machine modification in hours per hour. Assume that after each passing hour further modification gets 30% more difficult to achieve the same increase. Given an initial starting range of 35 minutes, and the commencement of the Very Bad Thing four and a quarter hours ago, solve for x such that you successfully avert the Very Bad Thing. You are not allowed to invoke vampires in your solution.

There. Much more interesting...

342. School bars same-sex partners at formals

Comment #161925 by Cartomancer on April 15, 2008 at 8:39 pm

I think this is a generational thing. It didn't happen at the school I went to in the 70's. But according to wikipedia UK schools are afflicted as well.

I got my GCSEs in 1999. This means it's either a very recent phenomenon indeed or Somerset was significantly behind the rest of the country on the uptake. Either is plausible...

343. Russell T Davies: Return of the (tea) Time Lord

Comment #161846 by Cartomancer on April 15, 2008 at 7:27 pm

Well well, here we go again...

You are gay and so biased. To what degree can you be completely objective about the topic?

You are straight, and so biased. To what degree can YOU be completely objective about the topic? Again, just because my situation is a minority one does not mean that I have "an agenda" and you do not.

how much of your "instinctual" defense is based simply on protection of yourself

How much of your "instinctual" attack is based simply on protection of yourself? Why should I be any more likely to want to further my position than you are? Seems to me just as plausible that you want to maintain the status quo here as that I want to upset it.

Is being gay REALLY 100% genetic? How can you ever rewind someone's life and completely change the environment and human contact and interactions and have the same result? If it IS a gene that is either on or off, then why aren't people either 100% gay or straight? What is a 77% gay gene? Is their a 77% left-handed gene, or a 77% male gene? Perhaps it is a combination that together yield the subtle degrees of orientation - I'm only guessing, but where is the incontrovertible truth or any data which completely refutes contradictory data?

I did not say that homosexuality is entirely genetically determined - in fact I did not mention genes at all, I merely said it was innate and had a biological basis. Given the fact that nobody has ever succeeded in changing their sexuality at all, I think that the innate part can stand. I will leave it in the capable hands of Steve Zara to explain the complexities of the "biological basis" bit - including possible genetic, developmental and related factors. Suffice to say that, for my money, the differing configurations of certain centres of the brain found in homosexual and heterosexual men is strong evidence for a largely biological basis. I shall leave it to Steve also to point out how genes coding for homosexuality, if they exist, might very well be transferred from generation to generation without direct copulation from those in whom they have manifested homosexual behaviour.

As for the definition of the word "normal" I think it is you who is trying to give it a very specific re-definition of your own, not me. In common parlance "normal" and "abnormal" are not neutral terms at all, but packed with positive and negative connotations respectively. If you wanted neutral terms you would use things like "majority" or "commonplace" or "prevalent" or even "standard" and "non-standard" or "usual" and "unusual". Just compare the difference in how we would react to a doctor talking about someone with "unusual blood" (e.g. type AB negative) and someone with "abnormal blood" (e.g. sceptacaemic). You might very well intend no offense, but if so then you have chosen poorly in the vocabulary you use to express it. It seems to me the height of perversity deliberately to choose contentious words, and then say you don't mean them to be contentious, rather than just picking more neutral words in the first place.

Your take on the televisual depiction of "reality" also seems to be rather skewed. For a start the Torchwood crew are fictional characters - not real people. If they were actual historical personalities then it might be legitimate to claim that depicting them with sexualities other than those they are historically supposed to have had is somewhat bizarre. But they're not. If most of them are gay or bisexual then what does that matter? Groups of people like that do exist you know. You might as well slate them for not being roughly half males and half females, or 40% Oriental, or having the appropriate distribution of height, weight and hair colour for the entire human population of the universe. Leaving aside for the moment that many of them are supposed to be from a future where bisexuality is considered the norm, the point is that a group of fictional characters can have whatever characteristics their creator wishes them to have. Their sexuality is not an irrelevant part of who these people are - it is integral to the plot in the same way that the heterosexuality of Romeo and Juliet is integral to the plot of their play. There are no openly gay people in that play (well, maybe Mercutio if you believe some interpretations), or indeed in any of Shakespeare's plays - does that make them somehow lesser works of creative fiction? Does that mean they don't convey aspects of reality effectively? Fiction is not about recreating what is real as exactly as possible - what would be the point in that? It is precisely about selecting, exaggerating and enhancing reality in order that particular aspects of it can be viewed in a different and more profound way. That necessarily implies distortion. Why is wanting to show the lives and stories of gay characters any more agenda-driven than wanting to show the lives and stories of straight ones? EVERY artistic depiction has an agenda behind it - there is no such thing as a neutral statement here. You can't produce a work of art without choosing what to show and what not to.

Ultimately it boils down to what messages we want to send with our art, and by implication what messages we want to suppress. If you impose a strict 5% limit on depiction of gay people on TV you are explicitly suppressing attempts to explore gay storylines, issues and ideas. That's anti-gay censorship plain and simple, and a terriffic handicap on social change towards greater tolerance and acceptance of gay people. You might as well tell eighteenth century Americans to stop writing plays about emancipated slaves making their way in society because slaves never really made their way into profitable careers all that often - chaining art so firmly to the reinforcement of the status quo is one of the surest checks on aspiration and social improvement we can impose. TV most certainly should not be "what eveyone (the majority) agrees is should be", because then it would exclude minorities by definition. Only someone in a majority group with very little to lose would say something as crass as that, or indeed the utterly appalling:

we (or I) live in a capitalist-democracy. If the majority want to vote with ballots or their TV remotes or their dollars for what is depicted, then that should be a respected outcome of the system. Anything to sway those votes is also part of the system

That's sheer lowest-common-denominator law-of-the-jungle tripe. Art was never and will never be about popular concensus and pandering to the prejudices of the majority. If you let raw, unadulterated capitalism run television provision you get the dire trash that American viewers are forced to tune into these days. The far superior methods of the BBC and other not-for-profit television companies produce infinitely better and more worthy results.

As for the issue of not being able to relate to characters on screen who do not share our experiences, I think you dismiss this phenomenon all too readily. Of course we have a degree of sympathy with people not of our ilk, but empathy is different. Empathy, by definition, is something we cannot have for someone we cannot feel the same as. It means feeling what someone else feels along with them, and if we are incapable of that, we are incapable of empathy. I cannot feel lust for a female, so I cannot empathise with a male character who does. Likewise with you and a homosexual male character. The best we can do in these situations is feel the closest feelings we can muster, aided by some degree of re-imagining. Even normal sympathy is not universally given. Most western audiences find Bollywood films somewhat harder to relate to than their intended Indian audiences because of the cultural assumptions present. Similarly, a presentation of a drama involving straight people experiencing straight people problems is less easily grasped by gay people because they do not have experience of that situation. Thus they have to work harder to understand it and engage with the situation on an emotional level. Obviously art can and should bridge these gaps and help us to understand the other side more effectively - but why should one side be forced to do all the work with only a modicum done in return? Why should gay people be marginalised and made to work harder than straight people in understanding and sympathising with what they see on television? Whatever the intentions, by marginalising the sort of depictions gay people can relate directly to, that is what you are doing.

No. Of course what you do in private is up to you, but we all have public appearances. If we all lived in a nudist society you would have an easier time making your case,

The prevalence or otherwise of explicitly sexual content on TV is an entirely separate debate to the one we are having about the relative proportion of homo- to heterosexual people depicted. Being gay is not wholly or even primarily about explicit sexual behaviour, just as being straight is not. You can have gay characters in any kind of television programme you like without compromising the level of sexual explicitness it contains. If there's no sex or sexualised interpersonal behaviour such as kissing involved at all then the distinction between gay and straight characters is utterly irrelevant. If the programme is of such a nature that it only shows occasional kissing then you could have men kissing women occasionally, women kissing women occasionally or men kissing men occasionally. Children's programmes depict heterosexual couples all the time without presenting any hint of sexual contact - husbands and wives or boyfriends and girlfriends living together happily in the main. Why not boyfriend and boyfriend, husband and husband or wife and wife? Let me pick some random examples off the top of my handy Wikipedia list of children's TV programmes... Bob the Builder, how about that? Bob has a girlfriend called Wendy, but there's no steamy construction worker hanky-panky ever shown on screen. How about The Adventures of Paddington Bear? You never see our fluffy Peruvian hero walk in on Mr. and Mrs. Brown hard at it under the covers do you? Why would it be any different if it were Bob and William, or Mr. and Mr. Brown who took Paddington in? Just showing gay people doing the same things heterosexuals do is not flagging it up and rubbing it in the audience's faces - quite the opposite in fact.

I repeat, because it is a vitally important thing to understand, GAY PEOPLE ARE MORE THAN JUST SEXUAL BEINGS - WE'RE JUST AS MUCH REAL PEOPLE AS THE REST OF YOU.

why has this [cross-dressing], and other activities, become associated with gays and not straights? Why not, say, with the emancipation and voting rights of blacks?

That can largely be put down to the lazy patriarchal tradition of lumping together all kinds of non-standard gender behaviours and refusing to see any differences or distinctions between them. It's a symptom of trying desperately to assume that one specific way of doing things is "normal" and everything else must therefore be abnormal, deviant, perverted, unnatural and so forth. From there it is an easy and lazy step to assuming that the causes of "deviation" must all be the same, when in fact there is no "normal" at all, and the majority behaviours have just as complicated and nuanced a cause as the minority ones.

Right, let us see what brother Zara has to say on all this then, and the gay icon phenomenon too.

344. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #161816 by Cartomancer on April 15, 2008 at 6:06 pm

did you know that William of Occam was actually a Catholic Franciscan Monk?

While we're playing the, entirely irrelevant, credentials-flashing game I think I had best point out that the Franciscans were friars, not monks. Friars take similar vows of poverty to monks, but do not live the life of a cloistered ascetic away from society - instead they devote themselves to serving the lay community.

Moreover, William of Ockham was actually excommunicated from the catholic church in 1328 after having been accused of heresy, and in his turn accusing pope John XXII of heresy for his views on apostolic poverty. He was also one of the earliest proponents of church/state separation, secular accountable government and individual property rights - thanks in part to his being taken in by the Holy Roman Emperor Louis IV and growing resentment of papal interference.

345. School bars same-sex partners at formals

Comment #161804 by Cartomancer on April 15, 2008 at 5:39 pm

As an English person I don't really understand all this colonial nonsense about formal balls at school. When I left school all I got was my GCSE results posted to me in a cheap brown envelope.

They probably wouldn't have allowed a same-sex partner to open my envelope for me though, which is just as bad. Not that I had a same-sex partner at the time mind, but the principle is still sound I feel. It can be very trying opening a cheap brown envelope without moral support you know. I'm wittering again aren't I?

Anyway, if religious schools in the far-flung corners of the empire want to persist in promoting such balls then they should understand a few important facts of life. In my experience gay boys are generally very fond of balls - much more so than their straight counterparts I'm sure. Some of them spend their days thinking about little else. They get rather uppity and frustrated when denied access. It's very cruel of the school authorities to exclude their gay charges thus.

Still, if I know anything about teenage boys it's that there will always be a goodly number of them willing to put their balls on the line to make a scene and stand up for their rights...

346. For sale: 13-year-old virgin

Comment #161085 by Cartomancer on April 14, 2008 at 7:21 pm

An ass whore takes the submissive role, making them the slave.

You've clearly never met some of the people I have...

347. For sale: 13-year-old virgin

Comment #161079 by Cartomancer on April 14, 2008 at 6:58 pm

Now now Diacanu, lets not be discriminating unnecessarily between the various services offered by, er, individuals of negotiable affection...

348. For sale: 13-year-old virgin

Comment #161039 by Cartomancer on April 14, 2008 at 5:21 pm

Good evening dear viewer, and welcome to the brand new series of the Henri Bergson Nihilism Hour!

Later tonight on the RD.net channel we've got another exciting episode of "Talking to Creationists", followed by the highly acclaimed psychological drama "24 hours to save Hitchens' Liver". Then it's hard-hitting ethical debate with "The Kuznetsov Problem" and animated lesbian porn with Mitchell Gilks into the small hours.

Regular programming has been resumed at last!

349. Religious education as a part of literary culture

Comment #160966 by Cartomancer on April 14, 2008 at 3:44 pm

A true appreciation of the Bible requires one to be able to read it in the Hebrew/Aramaic in which it was written.

True if what you want to appreciate is the culture which gave rise to the work in the first place. If, however, you want to understand how it was received, interpreted and transformed - and the influence it had on the societies which used it - you need to look at the translations instead. Aquinas and Scotus did not use the original Hebrew bible - they used the Vetus Latina and the Vulgate of St. Jerome. Celsus and Porphyry used the Septuagint. Shakespeare used Tyndale's version. Milton used the King James...

That name plagues me even here...

350. Religious education as a part of literary culture

Comment #160727 by Cartomancer on April 14, 2008 at 10:23 am

Hear hear! Without some knowledge of bible stories (and, admittedly, the reputations of particular Oxford colleges) nobody would understand my regular Tuesday night pub quiz team's name either...