This is not true. If after you steal my money you buy yourself a nice car, and I see you everyday passing my house in it and enjoying yourself then I will feel jealous of you. There's no fear of losing anything there. — Agustino

The jealousy comes on account of the insecurity of feeling that he has gained at your expense; which is certainly accurately classed as a kind of fear of losing, of being the loser..

My usage is perfectly in accordance with ordinary usage, and applicable to what you espouse; so don't complain. — John

It's not very strict are you out of your mind? >:O You gotta be joking. I espouse beliefs that all Muslims, Christians (authentic ones), Buddhists, Hinuds, and Jews believe. Do you think what so many people believe, and have believe through the centuries is "very strict in moral or religious matters, often excessively so" - that's impossible! Since the majority of men have believed so, it cannot be "very strict" because we set the standard of strictness based on the majority. Very strict is saying that you should never have sex. Or that you should never get married. Or that you should abstain from sex with your spouse except certain days, etc.

The jealousy comes on account of the insecurity of feeling that he has gained at your expense; which is certainly accurately classed as a kind of fear of losing, of being the loser.. — John

There is no insecurity - what insecurity would there be? There's no fear that he has gained at my expense - the whole problem is that he is enjoying what is rightfully mine, without my permission.

ou gotta be joking. I espouse beliefs that all Muslims, Christians (authentic ones), Buddhists, Hinuds, and Jews believe. — Agustino

Yes, and those kinds of beliefs may be understood to be more or less puritanical in the the sense in which I was using the word.

Yes, and those kinds of beliefs may be understood to be more or less puritanical in the the sense in which I was using the word. — John

How is that possible if those beliefs - the beliefs of the majority through history - and of most major moral codes out there - form the standard by which things are judged? If I judge them using themselves as standard, then they are normal - not Puritanical.

Yes, which makes you the loser; you are afraid of being the loser, of what others might say, of losing your standing, and so on.

As far as I am concerned those beliefs may have had their social uses in their day ( for a start there was no reliable contraception or social welfare back then); but things have changed and now they are no longer useful, just puritanical throwbacks.

I never said that you think of those beliefs as puritanical; although of course I believe you should, if you want to be a reasonable and rational modern person whose moral beliefs are in harmony with, and therefore useful in regard to, the times.

Yes, which makes you the loser; you are afraid of being the loser, of what others might say, of losing your standing, and so on. — John

No I'm not afraid of being any sort of loser - how others perceive me has nothing to do with it - I'm just angry and upset that an injustice has been committed - in this case to myself - and therefore I look to remedy this and bring about justice. Would you say for example if I see a man suffering in the street and I help him that I helped him because I'm afraid I may one day end up like him? That would be absurd!

As far as I am concerned those beliefs may have had their social uses in their day ( for a start there was no reliable contraception or social welfare back then); but things have changed and now they are no longer useful, just puritanical. I never said that you think of those beliefs as puritanical; although of course I believe you should, if you want to be a reasonable modern person whose moral beliefs are in accord with, and therefore useful in regard to, the times. — John

Yes they are useful in developing spiritual intimacy among other things. Of course you can peddle this liberal progressive ideology, which is what you are in fact doing, even without knowing it. It's so ingrained.

If being in accord with the times means being a liberal progressive, no I have no such interest, sorry to tell you mate :D I would rather preserve the light of Truth through this Dark Age.

Not convincing; if you were just angry and upset as you would be about any injustice that has been committed; then there would simply be no feeling of jealousy, but rather just of righteous anger.

Not convincing; if you were just angry and upset as you would be about any injustice that has been committed; then there would simply be no feeling of jealousy, but rather just of righteous anger. — John

Which is exactly the same thing as jealousy. What else do you think jealousy is? Jealousy is a sub-species of anger. It's with regards to self. Whereas anger is with regards to everyone else.

If being in accord with the times means being a liberal progressive, no I have no such interest, sorry to tell you mate :D — Agustino

There is no need to apologize for your failings Agutsino; just try to see things in a more rational light.

You keep trying to cast me as a liberal progressive; this is wrong, a reflection of your own prejudice, and is just a poor substitute for your lack of good arguments.

Jealousy is a kind of sub-species of anger yes; which is just what I have been saying. So, now you apparently are agreeing with me.

It is also an unhealthy self-focused sub-species which is not useful precisely because when needed the more healthy emotion of anger can do all the work that is necessary or desirable.

You keep trying to cast me as a liberal progressive; this is wrong, a reflection of your own prejudice, and is just a poor substitute for your lack of good arguments. — John

No I don't try to cast you as one - you are one. It's a simple fact. Liberal progressives are the only ones who share your beliefs. Certainly conservatives don't. And the whole conservative tradition doesn't. You complain that I don't let others live as they wish - but I have no problem with them living as they wish. On the other hand you have a problem with attacking conservatism and Orthodoxy and not recognising even the fact of its existence. You say its backwards, and not adapted to the times - nonsense!

It is also an unhealthy self-focused sub-species which is not useful precisely because when needed the more healthy emotion of anger can do all the work that is necessary or desirable. — John

Nope. In fact if it pleases you okay - I feel righteous anger when my spouse cheats on me - happy? >:O

Jealousy is a kind of sub-species of anger yes; which is just what I have been saying. So, now you apparently are agreeing with me. — John

Cite where.

No I don't try to cast you as one - you are one. It's a simple fact. Liberal progressives are the only ones who share your beliefs. Certainly conservatives don't. — Agustino

Some liberal conservatives may share my beliefs or even all of them. From that it simply doesn't follow that I am a liberal conservative. Syllogize your claim and you will see why it is an invalid inference. I'd do it for you, but I can't be bothered.

Nope. — Agustino

Yep, scintillating argument you got going there, boy.

Cite where. — Agustino

I haven't said that I explicitly said that, but it is implicit in what I have said. I certainly couldn't be bothered going back over what I said in any case to satisfy your desire to focus on what is really a minor point of little significance.

You assert with you "nope" that it is not anger that does the work of motivation in cases of fighting against injustice, for example. Perhaps you can explain then how the emotion of jealousy could be understood to able to do some specific positive work of motivation in some circumstances that anger could not equally well accomplish without the self-focused negativity.

Syllogize your claim and you will see why it is an invalid inference. I'd do it for you, but I can't be bothered. — John

You believe X.
A's believe X.
Therefore you are A.
A's believe Q.
Therefore you believe Q
Q is false.
Therefore A's are wrong.
Therefore X is false.

I can't be bothered either.

Some liberal conservatives may share my beliefs or even all of them. — John

Just so this goes on record: no conservatives, of any kind, would say that adultery is ever morally acceptable - regardless of what those who commit or engage in it think about it - and that's a fact. A few liberal conservatives may support the absence of legal punishments for adultery - that much is true, but none of them would accept that there is any situation in which adultery is morally acceptable, or in which sharing partners is moral. None.

Your knowledge of politics seems to be utterly and unashamedly lacking - so let me provide a lesson for you. Liberal conservatives are founded upon both promoting individual freedom (AND RESPONSIBILITY), and promoting conservative values. What are conservative values? First of all, John, conservative values are natural law. Do you know what that is? Do you know that natural law condemns adultery as immoral, ever since the Ancients? Do you know that one of the founders of liberal conservatism - Edmund Burke - condemned all forms of sexual immorality? Do you know that he decried the slide of the modern world into debauchery, especially as was happening in his time in France, during the French Revolution? What you're thinking about is libertarians - which are not conservative. Paleo-libertarians are libertarians founded on conservative values - they would condemn adultery but not legislate against it.

Furthermore - people who are very close to being what I called progressive conservatives - Reinhold Niebuhr - even they condemn adultery. Niebuhr broke his friendship with Paul Tillich because he used to have casual sex with women other than his wife - and that's the attitude any man with a spine would have. Only a leech - who dreams about doing this himself - would refuse to at least morally condemn such activity. There's also other people - like Catholic liberal conservative philosopher Jacques Maritain, who supported the famous left-wing radical Saul Alinsky - even he condemned adultery as outright wrong, unacceptable and immoral. Many many other examples, but again - this just illustrates that you don't know what you're talking about. You have no idea what world you're living in!

Yep, scintillating argument you got going there, boy. — John

Yes - maybe if you quote the whole sentence you will find an argument. Quoting just the beginning is another one of your sophisms.

You assert with you "nope" that it is not anger that does the work of motivation in cases of fighting against injustice, for example. Perhaps you can explain then how the emotion of jealousy could be understood to able to do some specific positive work of motivation in some circumstances that anger could not equally well accomplish without the self-focused negativity. — John

I think you understand by "jealousy" something very different than I understand. In your terminology you can replace jealousy with righteous anger if that makes you feel any better - and I've told you this before. You're ignoring the obvious point - it doesn't matter how you call that emotional reaction - what matters is that there is a negative emotional reaction which is objectively demanded if your partner cheats on you. End of story. And of course that part, you never tackle, you quibble over a word.

Now - fact of the matter is that you - as well as Osho, Krishnamurti, and so forth - all of you - you qualify as progressives, even if you have no interest in politics (or you claim you don't). Your mindset, and your mentality is progressive - it's not conservative. Same for the one spreading unenlightenment around - even though both of you have given your word that you do not wish to pursue this conversation further. But it seems you can't even keep your own word - I don't want to even think whether you can keep anything else where it should be kept.

More importantly - you have given your word that you will show to everyone how absurd it is to even discuss punishment for adultery - you have done no such thing. You have failed. In fact from the very first moment you posted the thread, you had someone else arguing along with me for punishment! And in fact, he was even more certain than I am that it requires punishment. So the only thing you proved is how ignorant you are - and how deluded you are by your liberal-progressive bias - that you think the whole world supports these absurd assumptions that you make. Namely that something can be morally permissible if the participants agree to it, and if two people agree to do X, then it is morally right for them to agree so. This ethics of consent. Not everyone shares this - but of course, in your ignorance you condemn everyone who doesn't to the dustbin of history - because you want to impose you values - or lack of values maybe. Other progressives have themselves told you that while they don't support punishment for adultery, they can see how people could rationally support or desire such punishment. Yet you don't even see that - you don't even listen. And look - this is a very liberal-progressive community - it's a fact. I'm one of the very few social conservatives here. And even in such an environment - even here - there's so many people who show consideration and understanding, and accept rational disagreement, unlike you - who seeks to impose your ignorance and your own values on everyone.

I can't be bothered either. — unenlightened

You might be more credible if you didn't embarrass yourself with performative contradictions.

Do you know that he decried the slide of the modern world into debauchery, especially as was happening in his time in France, during the French Revolution? — Agustino

I think the proper punishment for adultery is to tie the offender to a chair and dunk it repeatedly in the bay. And maybe after that do a witch test.

adultery — Agustino

punishment — Agustino

immoral — Agustino

debauchery — Agustino

punishment — Agustino

punishment — Agustino

liberal-progressive — Agustino

adultery — Agustino

adultery — Agustino

adultery — Agustino

Ad infinitum. Honestly, why don't you demand punishment for all the Seven Wickednesses of pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth? No more suffering is caused by subsidiary sin of adultery than by any of the Big Seven. Criminalizing, investigating, prosecuting and punishing people for pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth would certainly be a tonic for a debauched immoral society (like ours, I suppose).

Why pick on adultery? Mortal flesh is prone to many errors. "All we like sheep have gone astray, every one in his own way." What's so special about adultery? Coveting, envying, raging, gluttons cause at least as much havoc in this world than adulterers, though it may be less personal.

Perhaps the heat of your rage over adultery owes its high temperature to pride. Perhaps adultery is so offensive because it is, among other things, a blow to the esteem in which we hold our selves, an attack on the sufficiency of our value to another person. "What more than ME could you possibly want or need, you ungrateful wretch?"

Quick comments.

First I didn't open the thread. I merely stated in a very large and long post in a different thread which didn't have to do with adultery except as an example of a sin (an example which by the way I wasn't the first to offer in that thread, I was merely commenting on it) that maybe something like that should be legally punished. Now some folk are very very upset about that it seems. So don't blame me - I didn't want to discuss this at all (at least not in this way, with people who are so closed minded - I find it tedious) - especially with folks like unenlightened and John, I see no reason. I'd be open to discuss with people like yourself, or AndrewK if you were interested to discuss it because at least the discussion can get somewhere that way, even though we hold different viewpoints. With people who aren't open to even admit the existence of other viewpoints - calling them irrational, undeserving of being discussed, and so forth - no point in discussing except as offering a defence of the plausibility of the position.

Second the reason adultery is different from something like gluttony, is because most of the time gluttony impacts just the individual, and has minimal impact on others. Adultery is more alike theft, in that it doesn't only psychologically or physically harm the doer, but the victim as well. It's not about the suffering caused to oneself, it's about the suffering caused to others when deciding about legal punishments. If something causes harm just to yourself, no reason to outlaw it. But if something is significantly harmful to others - then there are grounds for potentially outlawing it - but then there are many further difficulties from there until getting to outlawing it.

Nothing is special about adultery - just another sin, like theft. I never even claimed it's the worst of sins or anything of that sort (although unlike theft it is a social sin, not an economic one - perhaps today most folk are so obsessed about the economy they don't care about society anymore).

Other than that your response is just quoting my post which is merely in retort to some of the other comments. What am I supposed to talk about if this thread is about punishment for adultery? Would you expect to see the words "flying pigs", "pink elephants", or the like repeated instead of "adultery" and "punishment" which is exactly what the thread is about (did you forget how the thread is called?)? Really... give me a break.

Really... give me a break. — Agustino

I'd rather discuss adultery with you than with anybody else, sweetheart.

Sin is its own punishment, like virtue is its own reward. People who sin significantly (I mean, real solid sinners) destroy their relationships with others, they cast themselves out of the community if they haven't already been cast out. They destroy other people. The cut themselves off from God -- a unilateral action on their part.

In the same way that many people are very robustly virtuous, a lot of people are not robustly sinful. A lot of their sinfulness is just wandering around in the dark not really knowing what the hell they are doing. "Moral incompetence" isn't the same thing as good, solid sin. Lots of people would have a hard time even telling the Inquisitor what sin is, never mind what their sins were. Morally, they don't know shit from shinola.

The real sinners are morally competent: they have detailed knowledge about what sin is, they know what virtue is, and they have decided to sin. There are all sorts of things a true sinner might do--everything from stealing an article that catches their fancy (knowing that there is no logical way of justifying the theft), seducing and consorting with their best friend's wife (and knowing precisely how this is harmful), killing (murder in the first degree), and so on.

The morally incompetent are not going to suffer much from their sinful behavior. Only the morally competent are able to suffer from sin.

I'd rather discuss adultery with you than with anybody else. — Bitter Crank

Makes sense - it's not like you find many social conservatives around here :P

since you responded words were added.

I have remarked that Sir. Patience please. :-*

Sin is its own punishment, like virtue is its own reward. People who sin significantly (I mean, real solid sinners) destroy their relationships with others, they cast themselves out of the community if they haven't already been cast out. They destroy other people. The cut themselves off from God -- a unilateral action on their part. — Bitter Crank

Agreed.

In the same way that many people are very robustly virtuous, a lot of people are not robustly sinful. A lot of their sinfulness is just wandering around in the dark not really knowing what the hell they are doing. "Moral incompetence" isn't the same thing as good, solid sin. Lots of people would have a hard time even telling the Inquisitor what sin is, never mind what their sins were. Morally, they don't know shit from shinola. — Bitter Crank

Agreed.

The real sinners are morally competent: they have detailed knowledge about what sin is, they know what virtue is, and they have decided to sin. There are all sorts of things a true sinner might do--everything from stealing an article that catches their fancy (knowing that there is no logical way of justifying the theft), seducing and consorting with their best friend's wife (and knowing precisely how this is harmful), killing (murder in the first degree), and so on. — Bitter Crank

Agreed.

The morally incompetent are not going to suffer much from their sinful behavior. Only the morally competent are able to suffer from sin. — Bitter Crank

Slight disagreement here, I think the morally incompetent will still suffer from their own sinful behaviour, only that they may not be able to perceive the link between the suffering and the morality (and will quite often identify the suffering as an unavoidable part), and hence may continue in their sin -> hence "the Truth shall set your free". The real sinners on the other hand will persist in their sin even if they see suffering as the effects of it.

See how much more easily such conversation goes? :D

I'd rather discuss adultery with you than with anybody else, sweetheart. — Bitter Crank

1:23-1:24

:D

Yes - maybe if you quote the whole sentence you will find an argument. Quoting just the beginning is another one of your sophisms. — Agustino

This is incredibly disingenuous; you have added to your post. When I quoted it, it just said "Nope".

Nothing worth responding to in the rest of your rather pathetic rant.
:-} :-d

This is not true. By the time you had made your post, I had already made the addition. I've added that immediately after having first posted. As soon as I posted, I edited it. But I understand that you may not have seen it.

Well I didn't see it so your characterization that my response to it it was "just another one of my sophisms" is completely out of line. By the way, the lone supporter of your position on this thread you refer to (MU) did not even bother to respond to my last questioning of his position, so there you go, In any case; I'm pretty much done arguing this subject; which held little interest for me from the start.