Unlike, say, religion?
Which doesn't in any way seek to undermine critical thinking or rewire childrens brains?
Religious convictions are emerging as the key battle line in the massive domain name expansion currently in progress at internet addressing overlord ICANN. Morality in Media, a largely Christian, US-based anti-pornography group, has become the first religious organisation to kick off a formal campaign against what it seems a “ …
43 You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, 45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? 48 Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.
Matthew 5:43-48
".... clearly implied lack of love for tax collectors...."
Tax collectors weren't liked by the 1st century inhabitants of Jerusalem etc. The tax collectors worked for the Romans you see, who were the invading army of the day, and hence were seen as collaborating with the enemy. They also weren't paid a salary but got their living by charging a level of tax above that which had to be paid to the Romans. So, big blokes with swords invade. some of your mates side with them and come round demanding tax from you - some of which they pass on to the blokes with swords, spears and chariots, some of which they keep for themselves. Might explain why they weren't popular.
More or less the same thing with Herod. Real king, puppet of the Romans, and very well documented too. By most accounts a rather nasty piece of work with a few murders to his career, but no-where other than the gospels is there any mention of him ordering his army to slaughter all male newborns in his domain... and that is one hell of a thing for historians to forget about. The writers of the gospels, or one of those who edited them, put in the slaughter of the innocents as a piece of propaganda to tell the Jews how ruthless and murderous a monster the Romans were willing to put in charge. Even if the story was completely made-up, it's still good propaganda. Nearly two thousand years, and he is still best-known for ordering a slaughter that never happened.
that such things - «big blokes with swords invade. some of your mates side with them and come round demanding tax from you - some of which they pass on to the blokes with swords, spears and chariots, some of which they keep for themselves» - (mutatis mutandi, with more modern weapons) never happen today, innit ?...
Henri
I do like JC, but some strange things are said and done in his name. His friendships with tax collectors and prostitutes should be be taken by those who follow him as a signal not to be so bloody judgemental and reactionary.
Like Kurt Vonnegut, I guess I'm an 'Atheist for Jesus'.
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“Pornography’s inherent objectification of women and children for sexual pleasure has been proven to rewire the brain, and ultimately tears at the world’s social fabric by defining down what is decent and right in our culture,” Patrick Trueman, Morality in Media's president, wrote."
Fave Author Wrote:
"Being a functional human being with a healthy sex drive - it's quite interesting in a society where we are all damaged and or impaired to some degree. Much of what gets demonstrated, while some of it's quite good in terms of the loving relationship or the enjoyable act it's self, but much of it is mmmmmm too crazy and dysfunctional for my liking. In terms of mental illness, a healthy sense of ones own identity and a healthy sexual relationship is better than having magic sticks on the wall to grovel at, or even having telepathic contact with some dead guy in low earth orbit... it's also better than the grip on reality of those people into taking "spiritual direction" from their "imaginary friends".
"Pornography’s inherent objectification of women and children for sexual pleasure has been proven to rewire the brain"
That's a complete red herring. Actually, every single sensory input, thought and idea rewires the brain. The brain is a learning machine, and it's constantly rewiring.
" and ultimately tears at the world’s social fabric by defining down what is decent and right in our culture"
What the hell does 'defining down' even mean? And who made the church (of whatever denomination / religion) the arbiter and custodian of what is decent and right? If people spent more time consensually shagging random strangers for the pure fun of it I bet there would be a lot less war, rape and pillage. (Granted, maybe a few more STDs and outof-wedlock children, but given the choice of social problems I know which I'd rather choose)
Think religious. They use an absolute morality system: God is right at the 'top' as the standard to aspire to. So 'defining down' means 'defining the common perception of decency as further away from the ideal that is God.' It's a bit tricky to follow them sometimes if you don't understand how they think.
I suspect the reference is to the apparent addictiveness of porn and the fact that an often-repeated action is harder to stop. Porn provides a powerful reward system for the continued usage of (usually) women as pleasure objects. While all behaviour does rewire the brain, there are few behaviours with such powerful rewards.
While cause and effect are difficult to argue, there does appear to be a re-enforcing effect. If you cheat on taxes once, you are more likely to do it again. Every time you conciously choose not to smoke, it becomes easier to choose not to smoke again.
I would hazard a guess that "defining down" means lowering the bar for what is considered acceptable behaviour. There was a time in the relatively recent past when not breaking your promises to your partner to "love and to cherish, forsaking all others. til death us do part" was considered normal and a good thing. Now the reality is that "you'll do for the time-being." I fail to see how that cannot be degrading and is based on the selfish notion that love is something that happens *to* me, rather than being something I give to someone else.
There was plenty of war, rape & pillage around before the Church came along. The Vikings were somewhat famous for it. War, rape and pillage are the product of selfishness. Porn too is inherently selfish - its sex without responsability or the effort of a relationship. Is it any wonder that people give on the hard work relationships involve when it looks like fun is to be had without all that hassle?
While the Church shouldn't be defining decency, the Bible does stake the claim that it offers something better than secular society offers. Even talking purely of sex, secular experts suggest sex is better in a stable relationship, if slightly less adrenalin fueled. Random sex with strangers doesn't really cut it.
That said... dumb idea for a tablet...
I think it's a good idea - however they should all be under one TLD ".religion", and ISPs should block this content by default to prevent impressionable youths, the weak minded etc from seeing it by accident - people should have to request to have this TLD unblocked, and their names added to a register of social deviants.
(See what I did there?)
If you don't like looking at porn, then DON'T LOOK AT PORN.
If these crazy religious fanatics get their way here, where next?
I do like the idea from AC about about a .religion TLD. This would be the first item I would block on my firewall.
Mind you, there are many a good hour to be spent winding up these crazy half breeds.....
P.
I thought it was 3 hail mary's and a hand through the candle. Poor bloody doves! At least eat them afterwards. What kind of deviants run around eviscerating innocent doves.
I have to admit my first thought was the same as the OP's, religious folks are claiming sombody else is rewiring minds? Is their grounds patent infringement?
It's bloody stupid of the people wanting to ban porn to NOT want porn TLDs. Porn-specific TLDs will be a doddle to block, if they had any sense their best strategy is to force all porn to be registered as a porn-TLD-ghetto that can then be closed off.
This is the same reason why porn-peddlers are also strongly against porn-specific TLDs. Why pay 10 times for 10 domains when your .com is raking in the cash just fine??
My morality is different to yours. Yours has been cobbled together from a collection of old books and you have been told by priests (or equivalent) that God demands you are this way. Mine just boils down to one thing 'treat everyone decently and equally' and came from within. Yours discriminates against groups because they are different to you, I don't. Yours promises pain and suffering for unbelievers, I don't. Mine allows people to be themselves as long as no-one else gets hurt, yours doesn't.
In other words please fuck off trying to dictate what people can and cannot do because it doesn't fit in with your beliefs as not everybody shares them.
In other words you're discriminating against religious groups because they came to their conclusions via a different path to yours and added some flowery language to what is, in essence, the same basic statement and now you want to dictate what they can and cannot do because it doesn't fit in with your own beliefs.
This absolves them of nothing, I should add, but you really ought to consider what you're saying, because you are no different in the end.
Yes I discriminate against religion. I hate it and wish everybody could see religion for the scam it is and that its entire history is one of population control. I have no problem stating this and it is my right to do so. I do not discriminate against the people who choose to follow that religion and am quite happy to let them do their own thing as long as it doesn't impact me. If any individual follower of that religion starts cursing me and telling me I am going to Hell etc just because I don't follow 'the way' then I will have a problem with that person, not everybody else of that faith.
Religious groups do not make such a distinction - if you are gay you are part of that group and hated, if you are a different religion you are hated, they do this with every type of person they can put into such a group because they are 'different'
And that in the end makes my opinion about as different from the religious as you can get. Some will disagree and that is their right but only as long as the religious are not in charge. Then you start getting laws against heresy, blasphemy etc and you no longer have the right to your opinion because God said so.
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I can't see how consumption of pr0n will go up just because someone has made a new home for it... I don't get this group's logic.
If I were them, I would back these TLDs because if all pr0n shifted there (unlikely, I know), it would make it easier for parents to block them.
On a side note, does it work like the following?:
.ADULT- tasteful erotica
.SEX - Lover's guide, etc
.XXX - everything else.
I think that rather than denying a 14 yo lad everything, he should be started on erotica which emphasizes sex as a fun, beautiful, compassionate act between two people... otherwise he'll just seek out the nasty stuff that is so common.
Some religion gTLDs -
.almighty
.church (although you might get catholic.church, methodist.church what happens if someone registers charlotte.church?)
.brainwashingchildren
..it's obvious why religions don't like the thought of pornography - their monopoly on perverting the minds of the young is being invaded.
.com (global, commercial)
.net (global, infrastructue)
.org (global, non-commercial)
etc
and then...
.com.uk, .com.usa etc etc
It's simple, it's understandable and barring non-ASCII characters, it works well without the need for a money generating land-grab. Oh, wait; there's the problem,.
“Pornography’s inherent objectification of women and children for sexual pleasure has been proven to rewire the brain, and ultimately tears at the world’s social fabric by defining down what is decent and right in our culture,” Patrick Trueman, Morality in Media's president, wrote.
Cool, my porn contains no women and no children. Glad to know that the Religious Right have no problem with gay porn.
Last time I checked my brain did not contain wires - so these guys are saying that watching porn is the equivalent of having a sparky come round knock you up a new ring main - but inside your head - wow amazing, I never knew that!
Sod getting that old fusebox sorted out, I'm just guna wrap it in pages from Playboy and it will fix itself!
It's scientific fact!
There's no evidence for it, but it's scientific fact.
Hooray for Chris Morris. I'd post you a link to Brass Eye, but my brain has recently been re-wired by looking at naked pictures of Ann Widdecombe, so I can no longer operate my right hand.
The argument from poor design says that the human body could not have been designed by a perfect creator, because it's full of really obviously stupid mistakes. Like fitting the retinas backwards, wiring the larynx up via the heart and the inclusion of an appendix that serves no function except to become fatally infected.
There's one comment listed for the .IEEE application by a Jerry Peyton of Streetlight Tucson...
"This pornographic domain will be accessible by children, and more easily identified by the sexually oriented domain name."
Huh? What exactly does he think the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers get up to??
to find my kids getting off to something in a .xxx domain than something in a .catholic (or similar) domain. If they spent too long in one of the latter I would have concerns about their rationality and their inclinations to be nice to others and treat people on their own merits rather than the colour of their skin or mythological beliefs.
To judge from the list of applications (*), hardly anyone outside the English-speaking world seems to be interested in gTLDs. I'm not in a position to read the non-Latin applications, but they are few in number and I'd guess that at least some of them are merely the equivalents of .com, .org, etc in a more appropriate script. (**) That seems a perfectly reasonable and proportionate extension to the TLD system, so why don't we just toss all the English ones in the bin and keep the rest?
(* Is there an official list anywhere? I was unable to find one at ICANN, but there's one at http://www.newgtldsite.com/new-gtld-list/. However, there's no entry for .disney which makes me wonder if it is incomplete. :)
(** I note, that we have applications for .koeln and .zuerich but not for .köln or .zürich. How do native German speakers feel about this. Is this another example of gTLDs appealing to the 7-bit ASCII English-speaking audience and failing to excite even the other half of the Western European code page?)
“[P]orn sites on the .com domain have not vacated the .com and moved to .xxx,” he added. “Rather, as we have seen, the .xxx has just added thousand of additional porn sites on the internet and .com porn sites [have] stayed put.”
I'm shocked! Shocked, I say! Who could ever have expected this?
This seems like a fairly classic bit of reframing. I don't think anyone ever said porn sites would give up their hard built brands and move to .xxx A person would have to be extremely naive to even think it. Surely the complainant is just trying to erect an issue where none stands.