[Master_Forcide]

Off the top of my head, the Ohlone didn't wear clothes. Thats the only tribe I've ever studied in depth.

[BrettH]

As I stated from the beginning, the only constant about sexual tabboos among all humanity is that people can be very creative about constructing them. Many are totally contradictory from other cultures. My posting of various cultures past and present was never intended to prove that people have NO tabboos of any kind; simply, that they rarely are the same tabboos as those of modern America, and therefore, are not inherent. They are a product of culture.

The reason I took up this argument against you was because you made the assertion that modesty was not a construct of culture. My examples are all very helpful in countering your assertion, and I would never say that all Greeks were exactly the same in the same way that I would never say that all people in the world have the same cultures.

Greeks on the whole, including the more prudish Athenians, were much less ashamed of their bodies than Americans are today even if all you take into account are the men in the Olympics and the decoration on the pottery that everybody had in their homes (and there are far more examples than that.) The Spartans were an example of a large chunk of Greece (they were one of the most powerful and large sized of the city states) that even allowed their women to display nudity as a non-sexual behavior in the manner of men, taking the differences even further.

ALL Greeks, contrasted with our modern American culture, indicate a very different idea of the role of nudity and sexuality and were therefore a valid example of a different set of mores. I mentioned the Spartans only to correct your comment that Greek women couldn't attend gaming events. It was never necessary to the argument, and your refocusing on that detail as the crux of my point is a straw man tactic.

I don't recall saying that body shame is a Christian invention (which I do not believe), only that your personal viewpoint and argument seems strongly Christian-biased. Anyone that views the entire world through a particularly strong social filter will have difficulties seeing the validity in other cultures, whether their filter is Christian, Muslim, Wiccan, or Zoroastrian. They will have a tendency to assume that any similarity they find in other cultures to their own validates their viewpoint, while any variance is merely an aberration.

----Brett

[Shane]

I invite anyone to go back and find a post by you that constitutes as well referenced quote in support of anything you have said, or for that matter to find an example where I insulted you. My very first post to you was an appologetic explanation of why your exampels do not answer my concerns, and you have now yet again misrepresented my arguments in your response to Jazual.

[Tim]

I think everyone here understand that your ability for denile is second to none. Infact, we covered that from the moment you said you were Christian.

You might try out your denile on Brett for a while but something tells me he has very much heard it all before.

[Tim]

Where were/are the Ohlone from, I don't know them.

[Shane]

I never said it was not a construct of society. You took up this argument with me when you began to tick off a number of tribes of people who had substantially different attitudes, and I from the beginning, from before you even chimed in, had stated that I knew of such things but that the majority of cultures have some sort of clothing taboo and some modicum of modesty where sex is concerned.

I would be most glad if both you and Tim took a few moments to go back and read what I actually have said as opposed to making things up. To repeat, and strenuously, I NEVER suggested that attitudes towards sex were not moldable. I have repeatedly stated that they can be. I have simply observed a lot of commonality across the globe concerning sex and clothes and I have yet to see even the slightest indication that the exceptions to that rule you and Tim have cited constitute a proof that Christianity is somehow the root of all sexual hangups in western society.

From this I have been transformed into some xenophobic closed minded bigot for essentially not agreeing with you and Tim, at least in his mind. This is not an uncommon discussion tactic in my experience from those who seek to prove something negative about Christianity. It just doesn't happen to work on me, as I tend to rear up rather than dissapear when being accused of some sort of wrongdoing or malicious intent that I never had or exhibited.

[Shane]

[BrettH]

You really see the concepts of sex and clothing among the Greeks (any of them), the Egyptians, the Yanomamo, the New Guineans, the Polynesians, the Japanese, Southern Baptists, and the Muslims as more similar than dissimilar? If so, then I give up the discussion as absolutely moot and unfathomable.

And again, I have never stated that Christianity is the root of all sexual hangups in western society, and in fact, clearly stated that I did not.

Tim and I are not making the same arguments, though it was rather nice of him to reference my posts upon occasion. If it's easier for you to lump all our opinions together, well, whatever floats your boat.

---Brett

[Tim]

You say this a lot. It’s interesting that you always put the blame on other people. I think you should re-program what ever function key you have this statement on to read … “I wrote this wrong” or maybe “I miss-spoke myself” if you feel especially non Christian you might even say “please excuse me I had no idea how wrong I was.”

And there never will be in a Christian dominated society like America. Aggression is far more paramount in this dynamic to procreation, let alone love.

You don’t know many people do you.

No but it is telling that the only childish sexual play you can come up with is an illegal act which results in the absolute victimization of the female for your example. Additionally, I think you would be VERY surprised to see how cowboys and Indians were played where I grew up.

--Tim

[Shane]

I am a big believer in the commonality of human experience, yes, even knowing as I do that as we speak someone in Africa is cutting off someone's lips in a show of brutality that would make many of us quail to see. After all, somewhere in the US, someone has recently, or is in the process of, or is about to commit an unspeakable act of cruelty to someone else that would make most of us quail to see.

I draw you and Tim together only insomuch as you draw together yourselves, in that both of you assert that I say things that I have not said.

[Shane]

Since Tim has made it abundantly clear that he is talking about me rather than to me, I will aim this reply at Brett as well.

Your refusal to rebut this sort of rhetoric on Tim's part speaks volumes about your supposed separation from his arguments.

These are nothing but trite personal attacks, and they characterize the vast majority of all that he has posted since he invented this name in order to talk about this subject anonymously.

[Tim]

You got to love this. You can’t handle either Brett’s or my posts and so you lump us together and cry foul.

I guess Brett, you and I are the Cathars and the Gnostics all rolled into one. I think it is because deep down Shane understands his/her arguments really don’t hold any watter.

And Shane, no, I am speaking too you because it illustrated my point about you. You’re the kind of Christian that circumcised my father when he was six as a form of punishment for speaking Ahnishnabemowin. You are the kind of Christian that then decries proof of that happening all the time ignoring the thousands of people that had similar experiences and never once offering proof your self that it did not happen.

Brett has never once said that Christianity is the root of sexual dysfunction in European cultures. I did and I stand by it. The fact that you just can’t handle the truth helps to illustrate the function of the Christian dynamic … and that is my point.

Brett tried to be reasonable with you. He/she appears to be educated but has taken the moral high ground and never once made reference to your insistence that ONE class in art makes you some kind of authority on history.

I think that it might be that Brett, to some small degree respects you (or maybe just people). I have no respect for Christians until they can prove to me that they have thrown off the yoke of their poisonous Church and actually have some kind of faith not dictated to them by a priest.

You go on and on about how you didn’t say such and such. You cry for “proof”. All the while you offer no proof of your own, absolutely refuse to acknowledge the sources both Brett and I have posted … and you would to ANYONE else that posted something against your beliefs. You cannot hear a different point of view other than your own. All you can do is deny it. I pin that on your church because it is so mundane to it.

You have a very small world that is steeped in the blood of my people. It is the inheritance that your fathers left for you and you accept it every time you find fault in something not to your understanding of Christianity, even if that is vilifying a priest.

You want proof? Go find it. To you and people like you that is the only way you will come to it.

[Shane]

"And Shane, no, I am speaking too you because it illustrated my point about you. You’re the kind of Christian that circumcised my father when he was six as a form of punishment for speaking Ahnishnabemowin. You are the kind of Christian that then decries proof of that happening all the time ignoring the thousands of people that had similar experiences and never once offering proof your self that it did not happen."

My first post to you was an appologetic acknowledgement of that sort of thing along with a statement that I do not believe that such things constitute proof that the majority of the non-Christian world does not also share some basic commonality regarding sex and clothing. I hate that sort of thing. It is indeed sick and twisted, but then again, so is your blind and vitriolic hate of me, a person you have yet to even truly meet.

"Brett tried to be reasonable with you. He/she appears to be educated but has taken the moral high ground and never once made reference to your insistence that ONE class in art makes you some kind of authority on history."

Yet another in the endless stream of untruthfull assertions regarding what I said. Brett stated I should go and research Egypt after I mentioned that the art I have seen that is Egyptian invariably has them wearing clothes. There probably is a lot of Egyptian art out there I have never seen, but the fact that so much of it has them wearing clothes flew in the face of his assertion that Egyptians were largely free of clothing related taboos of any sort. I am still open to real discussion about that, but so far that's where it stands. You assertion of what I said is simply, flatly, obviously demonstrably a false one, which incidentally is why I keep saying, "I never said that," to you, and not because I have some sort of psychotic disconnect with reality that forces me to deny my own culpability in things as you have accused me.

"You go on and on about how you didn’t say such and such. You cry for “proof”. All the while you offer no proof of your own, absolutely refuse to acknowledge the sources both Brett and I have posted … and you would to ANYONE else that posted something against your beliefs. You cannot hear a different point of view other than your own. All you can do is deny it. I pin that on your church because it is so mundane to it."

Another really obvious falsehood. I have offered up China, and India, and the Middle East, and just the world in general with dozens upon dozens of nations and cultures and hundreds upon millions upon billions of people. You and Brett have presented a short list of some of the least known civilizations that exist and asserted that they reflect something very important about how cultures form their values regarding clothing and sex. I have agreed with every single one of both of your points EXCEPT the parts that tend to insinuate that being concerned with clothes or privacy in sexual matters is uniquely and unhealthily related to Christian prudishness. For this one small caveat, I continue to be completely and totally lambasted by you, Tim, and I find it faith affirming.

"You have a very small world that is steeped in the blood of my people. It is the inheritance that your fathers left for you and you accept it every time you find fault in something not to your understanding of Christianity, even if that is vilifying a priest."

Tim, until today I didn't even know you HAD a people. My hands are about as clean of your people's blood as a Chinaman's.

Your supposedly victimized people were active participants in wars since before the horrid white man arrived, and his arrival seems merely to have given your people fresh economic reasons to continue that passtime. In short, your moral outrage is hollow, vapid vanity. You were a proud, fighting people, but your people lost the big gambit for power in North America eventually, and now it's time to move on.

Still having hard times? Deal with it. Time to stop blaming the white man or his twisted churches. If we are so awful, what does it say about your culture that it could not withstand ours?

I'm done with you.

[BrettH]

Actually, I just don't get involved in religious or political arguments that are that heated. It's a policy of mine, but again, you are free to read whatever you like into it. My limit was reached and that's that as far as my involvement is concerned. You'll note I also have not responded to any of your arguments directed to Tim's arguments, for that reason.

---Brett

[Tim]

It is true that we were and are capable of violence. That is obvious in how we never lost an armed conflict against the whiteman or how Bwandiac took all but two of the whiteman's forts during his war. It is like wise true that the whiteman gained dominance in this country out of lying, just as you are now.

“Moving on” to you and people like you, means forgetting who we were, or that we ever were. Instead of circumcising me to punish me for speaking my language you insist that I am just wrong, worse yet, you insist I am going to hell. It is unfortunate that your lies seep their way into any Indians ears such that they believe you. Brain washing is a powerful force and after the erroneous subjugation of the Odawa the larger population size of the Whitman (at that time) allowed him to force our children into their Christian schools to seed their poison firmly in Odawa people, as well as all Indian people. What does that say about white people? That they have the capacity for an evil that is boundless because it is cloaked in their Christian church. Nothing allows for the kind of evil like righteous condemnation. Not that any white person is bound to this legacy, they can choose to reject it. You have not.

Deal with it? I am, write now. At this very moment. We are YOUR shame and we will not go away. We do withstand you, because I, and others like me, withstand you. At the end of the day … Niinewiddashkohaung ndeznekas. Mukwa ndodem. Bodosega ndojeba minawa Wagankising Odawa ogichida ndaw. Choomokmanodeqway.

I would like to meet you in person, I would like to give you proof, because that proof would tear your heart out. Are we capable of violence? Today words are my war club we have withstood you.

Every time a white person like you says “You Indians get so much from the government”, or any one of a thousand screwed up ideas you buy the legacy your fathers left you. You accepted the legacy. Our blood is on your hands. To you I say do not deal with it. Do not twist it into whatever excuse you can think of … let it sit in your belly and rot. I think that there is a Jewish God that a man named Christ worshiped, I believe that you worship someone else and that the rot of your shame will identify you when you go to the other world. Your denile will not help you there. Nor will the spirits of those whites who have rejected what you have claimed as your own.

[Asaudan]

Oh, I totally understand what you're saying. In fact, I've gone as far as to plan the whole operation out for you!

I call it 'the Second Final Solution'.

[prof1515]

That's because Catholic teachings, like any religious teachings, are beliefs not facts. It requires absolutely no facts to formulate or justify a belief. Liberal theologians who often dispute religious doctrine do so on the basis of examination of historical data, data which most forms of Christianity not only exclude but refuse to acknowledge the existance of, in spite of reality. Just look at how long it took the Catholic church to acknowledge the Copernican Theory or how many Christians still believe homosexuality is somehow based on a "choice" rather than genetics. Most Christians aren't even aware of the history of their religion.

For example, the Gnostic texts provide a different view of Christianity than that of the New Testament. These conflicting works were thus excluded from canon, and many Christians today don't even know of their existance. Thus, it's possible for fundamentalists to claim that Christianity somehow consists of a consistent view. Of course it does, since they're not looking at the whole picture.

Ask John Siegenthaler how accurate Wikipedia is. It is not, and won't be, accepted by academia because it does not possess a legitimate system of checks and balances to ensure accuracy. Academic publication is a rigorous routine to ensure accuracy (and even then, there have been examples of slip-ups). The lack of such means that the data in Wikipedia is suspect because if any biased and uninformed moron can add to it, that's exactly who will.

Take care,

Jason

[Shane]

No doubt one would need to fact check a Wiki entry vs than an actual encyclopedia, but that's not what's been going on here. Tim has simply been attacking the information in it in lieu of presenting his own evidence, or for that matter bothering to look into whether or not the things I posted from it were accurate.

I actually said at one point, "is that or is that not accurate?" The proof that Tim didn't even bother to read it is that it was indeed inaccurate, not because of Wiki but because the Turtle island he was referencing was not the same one I came up with in my search. So he's just skimming and slinging mud and you're defending him on the grounds that Wiki isn't as reliable in some sense as a hardbound copy of Encycolpedia Britanica on your desk.

Well, surprise of surprises, I already understood that too. I just find the fact that people think a piece of paper from a university is the measure of intelligence need a wake up call, and the fact remains that the overwhelming majority of Wikipedia articles are quite accurate, and they do have a system in place for fact checking. It is peer reviewed in that sense, it is simply not the same group of people who are deemed "peers", and academics seem to hate that, and I love every minute of it.

It is always extremely disconcerting to me, and weakens my faith in mankind, when someone like Tim just goes off and normally decent people just sort of stand by and watch.

There's no excuse for what eventually became of this thread.

[Shane]

Couldn't resist.

It is true what you say, but the fact remains that gnosticism is distinguishable from Catholicism which is distinguishable from Protestentism which is distinguishable from Daoism.

The really funny thing about Copernicus is he had no experimental evidence. The scientific community of today would be every bit as skeptical of such a man as they were then, and the utter vitriol that oozes from the scientific community at even the hint of walking outside accepted guidelines regarding such things is as strong or stronger than it ever was under Catholicism.

Imagine someone believing homosexuals have some choice in the matter, given the number of people who chose to practice bisexuality. Scandal!!!!

[Tim]

Carefull Prof.1515 Shane will have you lumped with Brett and I in no time.

Although it does seem like we have softened him/her up a bit for you, at least now the rhetoric is less than the absolute infallibility of church doctrine and Wiikipidia entries. You might even get a cognitive post until you hit a point Shane just can’t accept.

Let me suggest raising the point of the early church’s attempts to suppress the women in their faith. That will tie in nicely with the Gnostics and I am sure the topic will spring Shane’s button.