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Putting thousands of chickens in a single pen (industrial mass food production) is also a really effective way to spread some terrible diseases (antibiotic resi

Putting thousands of chickens in a single pen (industrial mass food production) is also a really effective way to spread some terrible diseases (antibiotic resistance), and incubate new ones (avian flu). Suffice to say, while this is a valid effect, it is not the actual reason the public has such a moral aversion to legalized prostitution.

clavalle 11y ago
Which came first, the moral aversion or the danger?
- argonaut 11y ago
  The "danger" may have been a motivation for the development of the religious motivation. But there were plenty of societies in history that had no problem with prostitution. That being said, its historical origin has no relevance today.
- bobwaycott 11y ago
  Historically speaking, the moral aversion predated knowing about any danger.
  - dllthomas 11y ago
    Aversion clearly predated correct attribution of the danger. It is not obvious to me that the aversion did not reflect a recognition of danger, incorrectly attributed to the supernatural. Any evidence or reasoning you can point to would be interesting.
    - bobwaycott 11y ago
      How exactly are you defining a "recognition of danger"? I ask because I'm trying to grant the greatest possible latitude to generously interpreting your statement. And that, for me, is quite a stretch, given that I feel you are moving the goalposts in a very significant fashion with the modifier of "incorrectly attributed to the supernatural". To quite a seemingly intellectually and rationally dishonest degree. I get the sense you are building your argumentative trenches behind your restatement of "correct attribution", which involves way too much application of modern knowledge (and forgiveness) to past errors.
      - dllthomas 11y ago
        I'm not "building argumentative trenches" - you made a relatively strong statement that things happened a particular way and gave nothing in the way of explanation, evidence, or elaboration. As any of those would have been interesting, I asked for some. I didn't intend to say you were wrong. I'm not sure what definition I can give that would clarify matters, but an example of "a recognition of danger with incorrect attribution of cause" would be something like "a community was affected by a particularly visible STI; someone noticed that it was afflicting those who were more promiscuous; decided promiscuity was being punished and therefore bad." I don't see any reason to treat this as less likely than any other specific story, without evidence given in either direction. That doesn't mean it's likely - any specific story is unlikely, a priori.
        bobwaycott 11y ago
        It is quite curious to me that making a statement about the available historical record is interpreted as making "a relatively strong statement that things happened a particular way and gave nothing in the way of explanation, evidence, or elaboration." Do you make the same charge when someone says the ideas of Isaac Newton predated those of Albert Einstein? The historical record is there for you to interrogate and understand on your own. Given that you're suggesting a scenario that is far more difficult to prove than what the historical record shows us, I think the burden of citing examples is more squarely on your side here. There is ample historical evidence available that documents the establishment and spread of religiously motivated moral aversion to many things. Within the context of the available historical record, it can further be established when these ideas were created in relation to the history of other ideas that either supported, refuted, or otherwise informed pre-existing moral aversions. I'm making no strong claims here. I'm merely referencing the historical record. A religiously motivated moral and social aversion that demanded women on their periods keep themselves sequestered away from others predated the works of Shakespeare. Moral aversion regarding sexuality (documented in religious texts from centuries BCE) predated recognition and discovery of STIs (which started as early as the 15th century, iirc). > I don't see any reason to treat this as less likely than any other specific story, without evidence given in either direction. The historical evidence is there! Go look at it.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - clavalle 11y ago
    I'm not sure how you can say that. Look at the moral aversion regarding eating pork for some religions. It is completely conceivable that they saw people getting terrible wasting diseases from parasites from people who ate pork and came to their own conclusions that they were 'dirty animals'. Local authorities banned pork consumption. A few generations later it became necessary to describe why people shouldn't eat these animals and what made them different. There were no longer any examples of human disease people could point to so it simply became 'because God said so'. Who knows if this is how it actually happened but we do know early societies attributed to the divine all sorts of stuff that seems silly in terms of attribution but wise in terms of action today...I recall a story of one village in SE Asia surviving a devastating tsunami because of old religious lore about what to do if the ocean receded.
    - bobwaycott 11y ago
      > I'm not sure how you can say that. Because available historical records are quite informative. > Who knows if this is how it actually happened... Given the available historical record, we do. Sure, we cannot identify every possible reason behind every religious prescription, but we can at least identify the point in history that certain moral aversions were drafted, and the reasons given for them by those who created them. > It is completely conceivable that... That some creative scenario is conceivable has nothing to do with its place in history or its likelihood of being true. Just because some religious notion happened to centuries later be found to have a grain of sensibility doesn't in any way counter that, historically speaking, the known moral aversion predated any known danger. Many religious prescriptions are part of carving out an identity and social rules for its adherents. Hence casting them in a moral dimension, to add the weight of divine approval/disapproval to the weight of the religious source of obligation. They established and perpetuated power structures in human relationships.
      - clavalle 10y ago
        >Because available historical records are quite informative. Pointers to said records? I wasn't aware there was a historical play-by-play regarding how the dogma of today's dominant religions came to be.
nostrebored 11y ago
This is an extremely poor analogy. Chickens are not people, and I'm not alarmed by chickens getting sick. Prostitutes , however, are people and forcing them into hazardous situations out of desperation is not okay.
- gizmo686 11y ago
  The issue with chickens is that the illnesses or resistances that are bred within the chicken population can transfer to the human population, which is a human health concern.
  - nostrebored 11y ago
    Right the literal consumption of the good and those who consume it are of the only concern, not the chicken. Seeing as the consumption of women (treated as objects) is a key facet of this discourse, it's a particularly bad analogy.

clavalle 11y ago

Which came first, the moral aversion or the danger?

argonaut 11y ago
The "danger" may have been a motivation for the development of the religious motivation. But there were plenty of societies in history that had no problem with prostitution. That being said, its historical origin has no relevance today.
bobwaycott 11y ago
Historically speaking, the moral aversion predated knowing about any danger.
- dllthomas 11y ago
  Aversion clearly predated correct attribution of the danger. It is not obvious to me that the aversion did not reflect a recognition of danger, incorrectly attributed to the supernatural. Any evidence or reasoning you can point to would be interesting.
  - bobwaycott 11y ago
    How exactly are you defining a "recognition of danger"? I ask because I'm trying to grant the greatest possible latitude to generously interpreting your statement. And that, for me, is quite a stretch, given that I feel you are moving the goalposts in a very significant fashion with the modifier of "incorrectly attributed to the supernatural". To quite a seemingly intellectually and rationally dishonest degree. I get the sense you are building your argumentative trenches behind your restatement of "correct attribution", which involves way too much application of modern knowledge (and forgiveness) to past errors.
    - dllthomas 11y ago
      I'm not "building argumentative trenches" - you made a relatively strong statement that things happened a particular way and gave nothing in the way of explanation, evidence, or elaboration. As any of those would have been interesting, I asked for some. I didn't intend to say you were wrong. I'm not sure what definition I can give that would clarify matters, but an example of "a recognition of danger with incorrect attribution of cause" would be something like "a community was affected by a particularly visible STI; someone noticed that it was afflicting those who were more promiscuous; decided promiscuity was being punished and therefore bad." I don't see any reason to treat this as less likely than any other specific story, without evidence given in either direction. That doesn't mean it's likely - any specific story is unlikely, a priori.
      - bobwaycott 11y ago
        It is quite curious to me that making a statement about the available historical record is interpreted as making "a relatively strong statement that things happened a particular way and gave nothing in the way of explanation, evidence, or elaboration." Do you make the same charge when someone says the ideas of Isaac Newton predated those of Albert Einstein? The historical record is there for you to interrogate and understand on your own. Given that you're suggesting a scenario that is far more difficult to prove than what the historical record shows us, I think the burden of citing examples is more squarely on your side here. There is ample historical evidence available that documents the establishment and spread of religiously motivated moral aversion to many things. Within the context of the available historical record, it can further be established when these ideas were created in relation to the history of other ideas that either supported, refuted, or otherwise informed pre-existing moral aversions. I'm making no strong claims here. I'm merely referencing the historical record. A religiously motivated moral and social aversion that demanded women on their periods keep themselves sequestered away from others predated the works of Shakespeare. Moral aversion regarding sexuality (documented in religious texts from centuries BCE) predated recognition and discovery of STIs (which started as early as the 15th century, iirc). > I don't see any reason to treat this as less likely than any other specific story, without evidence given in either direction. The historical evidence is there! Go look at it.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- clavalle 11y ago
  I'm not sure how you can say that. Look at the moral aversion regarding eating pork for some religions. It is completely conceivable that they saw people getting terrible wasting diseases from parasites from people who ate pork and came to their own conclusions that they were 'dirty animals'. Local authorities banned pork consumption. A few generations later it became necessary to describe why people shouldn't eat these animals and what made them different. There were no longer any examples of human disease people could point to so it simply became 'because God said so'. Who knows if this is how it actually happened but we do know early societies attributed to the divine all sorts of stuff that seems silly in terms of attribution but wise in terms of action today...I recall a story of one village in SE Asia surviving a devastating tsunami because of old religious lore about what to do if the ocean receded.
  - bobwaycott 11y ago
    > I'm not sure how you can say that. Because available historical records are quite informative. > Who knows if this is how it actually happened... Given the available historical record, we do. Sure, we cannot identify every possible reason behind every religious prescription, but we can at least identify the point in history that certain moral aversions were drafted, and the reasons given for them by those who created them. > It is completely conceivable that... That some creative scenario is conceivable has nothing to do with its place in history or its likelihood of being true. Just because some religious notion happened to centuries later be found to have a grain of sensibility doesn't in any way counter that, historically speaking, the known moral aversion predated any known danger. Many religious prescriptions are part of carving out an identity and social rules for its adherents. Hence casting them in a moral dimension, to add the weight of divine approval/disapproval to the weight of the religious source of obligation. They established and perpetuated power structures in human relationships.
    - clavalle 10y ago
      >Because available historical records are quite informative. Pointers to said records? I wasn't aware there was a historical play-by-play regarding how the dogma of today's dominant religions came to be.

nostrebored 11y ago

This is an extremely poor analogy. Chickens are not people, and I'm not alarmed by chickens getting sick. Prostitutes , however, are people and forcing them into hazardous situations out of desperation is not okay.

gizmo686 11y ago
The issue with chickens is that the illnesses or resistances that are bred within the chicken population can transfer to the human population, which is a human health concern.
- nostrebored 11y ago
  Right the literal consumption of the good and those who consume it are of the only concern, not the chicken. Seeing as the consumption of women (treated as objects) is a key facet of this discourse, it's a particularly bad analogy.