Thrasymachus at Urban Philosophy has written a post wherein he attempts to educate some of us on how to not be a “religious nutter” in the context of the ethics of homosexuality. He writes, “Assume God exists. Assume Christianity is true. Imagine yourself as a Christian.” Thankfully I do not have too much difficulty accepting these assumptions for the sake of argument.
Thrasymachus next writes, “Say you know that there’s a mountain of evidence suggesting that homosexuality isn’t bad, yet your religious beliefs say it is bad.” Unfortunately it is impossible for me to accept the first assumption of this sentence as it is inconsistent with the assumptions Thrasymachus has already requested that I take in reading this portion of his argument. Since God exists and Christianity is true and since I am a Christian it is wholly impossible for there to be “a mountain of evidence suggesting that homosexuality isn’t bad.” Not only is there a theologically and philosophically untenable and unwritten assumption here which suggests that there are such things as brute facts which ‘speak for themselves’ but according to the Christian God homosexuality is “bad”. Thrasymachus even writes that my “religious beliefs say it is bad.” Thrasymachus might want to argue that Christianity is false or argue that Christianity does not entail that homosexuality is immoral but the assumptions Thrasymachus wants his readers to accept appear to exclude the advancement of such arguments.
But what do I know? I am just a “crazy” “religious nutter”. 😉
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